Dark Energy and the Hubble Age

I point out that an effective upper limit of approximately 20 Gyr (for a Hubble constant of 72 km/s/Mpc) or alternatively on the $H_0$-independent quantity $H_0t_0 < 1.47$, exists on the age of the Universe, essentially independent of the unknown equation of state of the dominant dark energy component in the Universe. Unless astrophysical constraints on the age of the Universe can convincingly reduce the upper limit to below this value no useful lower limit on the equation of state parameter $w$ for this component can be obtained. Direct dating by stars does not provide a useful constraint, but model-dependent cosmological limits from supernovae and the CMB observations may. For a constant value of $w$, a bound $H_0t_0 -1.5$Comment: 4 pages, submitted to Ap. J. Lett (analytic asymptotic upper bound now added

Geometry and Destiny

The recognition that the cosmological constant may be non-zero forces us to re-evaluate standard notions about the connection between geometry and the fate of our Universe. An open Universe can recollapse, and a closed Universe can expand forever. As a corollary, we point out that there is no set of cosmological observations we can perform that will unambiguously allow us to determine what the ultimate destiny of the Universe will be.Comment: 7 pages, Gravity Research Foundation Essa

Old Galaxies at High Redshift and the Cosmological Constant

In a recent striking discovery, Dunlop {\bf \it et al} observed a galaxy at redshift z=1.55 with an estimated age of 3.5 Gyr. This is incompatible with age estimates for a flat matter dominated universe unless the Hubble constant is less than $45 kms^{-1}Mpc^{-1}$. While both an open universe, and a universe with a cosmological constant alleviate this problem, I argue here that this result favors a non-zero cosmological constant, especially when considered in light of other cosmological constraints. In the first place, for the favored range of matter densities, this constraint is more stringent than the globular cluster age constraint, which already favors a non-zero cosmological constant. Moreover, the age-redshift relation for redshifts of order unity implies that the ratio between the age associated with redshift 1.55 and the present age is also generally larger for a cosmological constant dominated universe than for an open universe. In addition, structure formation is generally suppressed in low density cosmologies, arguing against early galaxy formation. The additional constraints imposed by the new observation on the parameter space of $h$ vs $\Omega_{matter}$ (where $H= 100 h kms^{-1}Mpc^{-1}$) are derived for both cosmologies. For a cosmological constant dominated universe this constraint is consistent with the range allowed by other cosmological constraints, which also favor a non-zero value.Comment: latex, 10 pages, including two embedded postscript figure

Observation of Cosmic Acceleration and Determining the Fate of the Universe

Current observations of Type Ia supernovae provide evidence for cosmic acceleration out to a redshift of z \lsim 1, leading to the possibility that the universe is entering an inflationary epoch. However, inflation can take place only if vacuum-energy (or other sufficiently slowly redshifting source of energy density) dominates the energy density of a region of physical radius 1/H. We argue that for the best-fit values of $\Omega_\Lambda$ and $\Omega_m$ inferred from the supernovae data, one must confirm cosmic acceleration out to at least $z \simeq 1.8$ to infer that the universe is inflating.Comment: 4 pages;important changes in conclusion; published in Phys. Rev. Let

Reheating predictions in single field inflation

Reheating is a transition era after the end of inflation, during which the inflaton is converted into the particles that populate the Universe at later times. No direct cosmological observables are normally traceable to this period of reheating. Indirect bounds can however be derived. One possibility is to consider cosmological evolution for observable CMB scales from the time of Hubble crossing to the present time. Depending upon the model, the duration and final temperature after reheating, as well as its equation of state, may be directly linked to inflationary observables. For single-field inflationary models, if we approximate reheating by a constant equation of state, one can derive relations between the reheating duration (or final temperature), its equation of state parameter, and the scalar power spectrum amplitude and spectral index. While this is a simple approximation, by restricting the equation of state to lie within a broad physically allowed range, one can in turn bracket an allowed range of $n_s$ and $r$ for these models. The added constraints can help break degeneracies between inflation models that otherwise overlap in their predictions for $n_s$ and $r$.Comment: 32 pages, 15 figures. Revised in response to comments on the original version, and in preparation for submission for publication. More references and a new figure were adde

Lepton flavor violation in low-scale seesaw models: SUSY and non-SUSY contributions

Taking the supersymmetric inverse seesaw mechanism as the explanation for neutrino oscillation data, we investigate charged lepton flavor violation in radiative and 3-body lepton decays as well as in neutrinoless $\mu-e$ conversion in muonic atoms. In contrast to former studies, we take into account all possible contributions: supersymmetric as well as non-supersymmetric. We take CMSSM-like boundary conditions for the soft supersymmetry breaking parameters. We find several regions where cancellations between various contributions exist, reducing the lepton flavor violating rates by an order of magnitude compared to the case where only the dominant contribution is taken into account. This is in particular important for the correct interpretation of existing data as well as for estimating the reach of near future experiments where the sensitivity will be improved by one to two orders of magnitude. Moreover, we demonstrate that ratios like BR($\tau\to 3 \mu$)/BR($\tau\to \mu e^+ e^-$) can be used to determine whether the supersymmetric contributions dominate over the $W^\pm$ and $H^\pm$ contributions or vice versa.Comment: 75 pages, 7 figures. v3: references and comments added. Matches published versio

Lifetime statistics of quantum chaos studied by a multiscale analysis

In a series of pump and probe experiments, we study the lifetime statistics of a quantum chaotic resonator when the number of open channels is greater than one. Our design embeds a stadium billiard into a two dimensional photonic crystal realized on a Silicon-on-insulator substrate. We calculate resonances through a multiscale procedure that combines graph theory, energy landscape analysis and wavelet transforms. Experimental data is found to follow the universal predictions arising from random matrix theory with an excellent level of agreement.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figure

A Nearly Scale Invariant Spectrum of Gravitational Radiation from Global Phase Transitions

Using a large N sigma model approximation we explicitly calculate the power spectrum of gravitational waves arising from a global phase transition in the early universe and we confirm that it is scale invariant, implying an observation of such a spectrum may not be a unique feature of inflation. Moreover, the predicted amplitude can be over 3 orders of magnitude larger than the naive dimensional estimate, implying that even a transition that occurs after inflation may dominate in Cosmic Microwave Background polarization or other gravity wave signals.Comment: 4 pages, PRL published versio

Cloud-top meridional momentum transports on Saturn and Jupiter

Cloud-tracked wind measurements reported by Sromovsky et al. were analyzed to determine meridional momentum transports in Saturn's northern middle latitudes. Results are expressed in terms of eastward and northward velocity components (u and v), and eddy components u and v. At most latitudes between 13 and 44 deg N (planetocentric), the transport by the mean flow () is measurably southward, tending to support Saturn's large equatorial jet, and completely dominating the eddy transport. Meridional velocities are near zero at the peak of the relatively weak westward jet; along the flanks of that jet, measurements indicate divergent flow out of the jet. In this region the dominant eddy transport () is northward on the north side of the jet, but not resolvable on the south side. Eddy transports at most other latitudes are not significantly different from measurement error. The conversion of eddy kinetic energy to mean kinetic energy, indicated by the correlation between and d/dy (where y is meridional distance) is clearly smaller than various values reported for Jupiter, and not significantly different from zero. Both Jovian and Saturnian results may be biased by the tendency for cloud tracking to favor high contrast features, and thus may not be entirely representative of the cloud level motions as a whole