22 research outputs found
Do primordial Lithium abundances imply there's no Dark Energy?
Explaining the well established observation that the expansion rate of the
universe is apparently accelerating is one of the defining scientific problems
of our age. Within the standard model of cosmology, the repulsive 'dark energy'
supposedly responsible has no explanation at a fundamental level, despite many
varied attempts. A further important dilemma in the standard model is the
Lithium problem, which is the substantial mismatch between the theoretical
prediction for 7-Li from Big Bang Nucleosynthesis and the value that we observe
today. This observation is one of the very few we have from along our past
worldline as opposed to our past lightcone. By releasing the untested
assumption that the universe is homogeneous on very large scales, both apparent
acceleration and the Lithium problem can be easily accounted for as different
aspects of cosmic inhomogeneity, without causing problems for other
cosmological phenomena such as the cosmic microwave background. We illustrate
this in the context of a void model.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figures. v2: minor rearrangements in the text, comments
and references expanded, results unchange
Evolution of the Cosmic Gas and the Relic Supernova Neutrino Background
Using the redshift evolution of the cosmic gas, as inferred from QSO
absorption line studies, we calculate the past supernova rate and the relic
supernova neutrino background. Using this new technique we find the predicted
relic neutrino flux at low energies to be at least an order of magnitude below
previous estimates. We argue that the evolution of the cosmic gas is consistent
with a large decrease in the number of early-type galaxies at redshifts , and that this evolution is the source of the reduction in the predicted
neutrino flux. Additional observational constraints from recent redshift
surveys lead us to propose a modified model for the evolution of the cosmic gas
in which significant infall at low redshift occurs. We discuss the possible
relevance of our calculations to the X-ray emitting metal-enriched gas observed
in the intergalactic medium.Comment: minor clarifications added to text. 27 pages, latex, 6 figures, also
available at ftp://ftp.cita.utoronto.ca/ftp/cita/malaney Accepted for
publication in Astroparticle Physic
Inhomogeneous Neutrino Degeneracy and Big Bang Nucleosynthesis
We examine Big Bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) in the case of inhomogenous
neutrino degeneracy, in the limit where the fluctuations are sufficiently small
on large length scales that the present-day element abundances are homogeneous.
We consider two representive cases: degeneracy of the electron neutrino alone,
and equal chemical potentials for all three neutrinos. We use a linear
programming method to constrain an arbitrary distribution of the chemical
potentials. For the current set of (highly-restrictive) limits on the
primordial element abundances, homogeneous neutrino degeneracy barely changes
the allowed range of the baryon-to-photon ratio. Inhomogeneous degeneracy
allows for little change in the lower bound on the baryon-to-photon ratio, but
the upper bound in this case can be as large as 1.1 \times 10^{-8} (only
electron neutrino degeneracy) or 1.0 \times 10^{-9} (equal degeneracies for all
three neutrinos). For the case of inhomogeneous neutrino degeneracy, we show
that there is no BBN upper bound on the neutrino energy density, which is
bounded in this case only by limits from structure formation and the cosmic
microwave background.Comment: 6 pages, no figure
The Quark-Hadron Phase Transition, QCD Lattice Calculations and Inhomogeneous Big-Bang Nucleosynthesis
We review recent lattice QCD results for the surface tension at the finite
temperature quark-hadron phase transition and discuss their implications on the
possible scale of inhomogeneities. In the quenched approximation the average
distance between nucleating centers is smaller than the diffusion length of a
protron, so that inhomogeneities are washed out by the time nucleosynthesis
sets in. Consequently the baryon density fluctuations formed by a QCD phase
transition in the early universe cannot significantly affect standard big-bang
nucleosynthesis calculations and certainly cannot allow baryons to close the
universe. At present lattice results are inconclusive when dynamical fermions
are included.Comment: 8 pages, LaTe
Big Bang Nucleosynthesis with Gaussian Inhomogeneous Neutrino Degeneracy
We consider the effect of inhomogeneous neutrino degeneracy on Big Bang
nucleosynthesis for the case where the distribution of neutrino chemical
potentials is given by a Gaussian. The chemical potential fluctuations are
taken to be isocurvature, so that only inhomogeneities in the electron chemical
potential are relevant. Then the final element abundances are a function only
of the baryon-photon ratio , the effective number of additional neutrinos
, the mean electron neutrino degeneracy parameter , and
the rms fluctuation of the degeneracy parameter, . We find that for
fixed , , and , the abundances of helium-4,
deuterium, and lithium-7 are, in general, increasing functions of .
Hence, the effect of adding a Gaussian distribution for the electron neutrino
degeneracy parameter is to decrease the allowed range for . We show that
this result can be generalized to a wide variety of distributions for .Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures, added discussion of neutrino oscillations,
altered presentation of figure
Scales of the Extra Dimensions and their Gravitational Wave Backgrounds
Circumstances are described in which symmetry breaking during the formation
of our three-dimensional brane within a higher-dimensional space in the early
universe excites mesoscopic classical radion or brane-displacement degrees of
freedom and produces a detectable stochastic background of gravitational
radiation. The spectrum of the background is related to the unification energy
scale and the the sizes and numbers of large extra dimensions. It is shown that
properties of the background observable by gravitational-wave observatories at
frequencies Hz to Hz contain information about
unification on energy scales from 1 to TeV, gravity propagating
through extra-dimension sizes from 1 mm to mm, and the dynamical
history and stabilization of from one to seven extra dimensions.Comment: 6 pages, Latex, 1 figure, submitted to Phys. Re
The Supernova Relic Neutrino Background
An upper bound to the supernova relic neutrino background from all past Type
II supernovae is obtained using observations of the Universal metal enrichment
history. We show that an unambiguous detection of these relic neutrinos by the
Super-Kamiokande detector is unlikely. We also analyze the event rate in the
Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (where coincident neutrons from anti-nu_e + D -->
n + n + e+ might enhance background rejection), and arrive at the same
conclusion. If the relic neutrino flux should be observed to exceed our upper
bound and if the observations of the metal enrichment history (for z<1) are not
in considerable error, then either the Type II supernova rate does not track
the metal enrichment history or some mechanism may be responsible for
transforming anti-nu_{mu,tau} --> anti-nu_e.Comment: Matches version accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.
Disappearing Dark Matter in Brane World Cosmology: New Limits on Noncompact Extra Dimensions
We explore cosmological implications of dark matter as massive particles
trapped on a brane embedded in a Randall-Sundrum noncompact higher dimension
space. It is an unavoidable consequence of this cosmology that massive
particles are metastable and can disappear into the bulk dimension. Here, we
show that a massive dark matter particle (e.g. the lightest supersymmetric
particle) is likely to have the shortest lifetime for disappearing into the
bulk. We examine cosmological constraints on this new paradigm and show that
disappearing dark matter is consistent (at the 95% confidence level) with all
cosmological constraints, i.e. present observations of Type Ia supernovae at
the highest redshift, trends in the mass-to-light ratios of galaxy clusters
with redshift, the fraction of X-ray emitting gas in rich clusters, and the
spectrum of power fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background. A best concordance region is identified corresponding to a mean lifetime for
dark matter disappearance of Gyr. The implication
of these results for brane-world physics is discussed.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures, new cosmological constraints added, accepted for
publication in PR
Low-Energy Direct Capture in the 8Li(n,gamma)9Li and 8B(p,gamma)9C Reactions
The cross sections of the 8Li(n,gamma)9Li and 8B(p,gamma)9C capture reactions
have been analyzed using the direct capture model. At low energies which is the
astrophysically relevant region the capture process is dominated by E1
transitions from incoming s-waves to bound p-states. The cross sections of both
mirror reactions can be described simultaneously with consistent potential
parameters, whereas previous calculations have overestimated the capture cross
sections significantly. However, the parameters of the potential have to be
chosen very carefully because the calculated cross section of the
8Li(n,gamma)9Li reaction depends sensitively on the potential strength.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, Phys. Rev. C, accepte
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Nuclear reaction uncertainties in standard and non-standard cosmologies
We discuss here the uncertainties in the nuclear input data relevant for calculations of standard and non-standard primordial nucleosynthesis. We show how these uncertainties can affect the predictive power of such calculations, and we identify those key nuclear reactions for which improved experimental data on the associated reaction rates is most needed. Such experimental data can lead to more accurate discriminatory tests between the differing primordial nucleosynthesis scenarios. 34 refs., 3 tabs