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Particle physics and cosmology
This series of lectures is about the role of particle physics in physical processes that occurred in the very early stages of the bug gang. Of particular interest is the role of particle physics in determining the evolution of the early Universe, and the effect of particle physics on the present structure of the Universe. The use of the big bang as a laboratory for placing limits on new particle physics theories will also be discussed. Section 1 reviews the standard cosmology, including primordial nucleosynthesis. Section 2 reviews the decoupling of weakly interacting particles in the early Universe, and discusses neutrino cosmology and the resulting limits that may be placed on the mass and lifetime of massive neutrinos. Section 3 discusses the evolution of the vacuum through phase transitions in the early Universe and the formation of topological defects in the transitions. Section 4 covers recent work on the generation of the baryon asymmetry by baryon-number violating reactions in Grand Unified Theories, and mentions some recent work on baryon number violation effects at the electroweak transition. Section 5 is devoted to theories of cosmic inflation. Finally, Section 6 is a discussion of the role of extra spatial dimensions in the evolution of the early Universe. 78 refs., 32 figs., 6 tabs
Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays: The Annihilation of Super-Heavy Relics
We investigate the possibility that ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs)
originate from the annihilation of relic superheavy (SH) dark matter in the
Galactic halo. In order to fit the data on UHECRs, a cross section of
is
required if the SH dark matter follows a Navarro--Frenk--White (NFW) density
profile. This would require extremely large- contributions to the
annihilation cross section. An interesting finding of our calculation is that
the annihilation in sub-galactic clumps of dark matter dominates over the
annihilations in the smooth dark matter halo, thus implying much smaller values
of the cross section needed to explain the observed fluxes of UHECRs.Comment: To appear in the proceedings of the TAUP conference, September 8-12,
2001 - Gran Sasso Laboratory, Ital
Probing the stability of superheavy dark matter particles with high-energy neutrinos
Two of the most fundamental properties of the dark matter particle, the mass
and the lifetime, are only weakly constrained by the astronomical and
cosmological evidence of dark matter. We derive in this paper lower limits on
the lifetime of dark matter particles with masses in the range 10 TeV-10^15 TeV
from the non-observation of ultrahigh energy neutrinos in the AMANDA, IceCube,
Auger and ANITA experiments. For dark matter particles which produce neutrinos
in a two body or a three body decay, we find that the dark matter lifetime must
be longer than O(10^26-10^28) s for masses between 10 TeV and the Grand
Unification scale. Finally, we also calculate, for concrete particle physics
scenarios, the limits on the strength of the interactions that induce the dark
matter decay.Comment: 17 pages, 6 figures; v2: references added, discussion improved,
matches the version published at JCA
Natural Warm Inflation
We derive the requirements that a generic axion-like field has to satisfy in
order to play the role of the inflaton field in the warm inflation scenario.
Compared to the parameter space in ordinary natural inflation models, we find
that the parameter space in our model is enlarged. In particular, we avoid the
problem of having an axion decay constant that relates to the Planck scale,
which is instead present in the ordinary natural inflation models; in fact, our
model can easily accommodate values of the axion decay constant that lie well
below the Planck scale.Comment: 19 pages, 7 figures; version accepted in JCA
The cosmological constant and oscillating metrics
The presence of a cosmological constant, Lambda, in an action with higher
powers of the curvature can produce rapidly oscillating metrics. We develop a
perturbative approach for generating periodic solutions to the non-linear field
equations for such actions based on a small amplitude expansion. We find that
these oscillations have an amplitude proportional to \sqrt{\Lambda} and a
frequency of order the Planck mass. In a 4+1 dimensional scenario, a family of
metrics exists that are periodic in the extra dimension and are parameterized
by an effective four-dimensional cosmological constant which drives a rapid
oscillation.Comment: 15 pages, uses JHEP, no figure
Shear and Vorticity in Inflationary Brans-Dicke Cosmology with Lambda-Term
We find a solution for exponential inflation in Brans-Dicke cosmology endowed
with a cosmological term, which includes time-varying shear and vorticity. We
find that the scalar field and the scale factor increase exponentialy while
shear, vorticity, energy density, cosmic pressure and the cosmological term
decay exponentialy for beta < 0, where beta is defined in the text.Comment: 8 pages including front one. Published by Astrophysics and Space
Scienc
Effects of Squark Processes on the Axino CDM Abundance
We investigate the role of an effective dimension-4 axino-quark-squark
coupling in the thermal processes producing stable cold axino relics in the
early Universe. We find that, while the induced squark and quark scattering
processes are always negligible, squark decays become important in the case of
low reheat temperature and large gluino mass. The effect can tighten the bounds
on the scenario from the requirement that cold dark matter axinos do not
overclose the Universe.Comment: 20 pages, 9 figures, uses JHEP3.cl
The Effective Potential, the Renormalisation Group and Vacuum Stability
We review the calculation of the the effective potential with particular
emphasis on cases when the tree potential or the
renormalisation-group-improved, radiatively corrected potential exhibits
non-convex behaviour. We illustrate this in a simple Yukawa model which
exhibits a novel kind of dimensional transmutation. We also review briefly
earlier work on the Standard Model. We conclude that, despite some recent
claims to the contrary, it can be possible to infer reliably that the tree
vacuum does not represent the true ground state of the theory.Comment: 23 pages; 5 figures; v2 includes minor changes in text and additional
reference
Holomorphic selection rules, the origin of the mu term, and thermal inflation
When an abelian gauge theory with integer charges is spontaneously broken by
the expectation value of a charge Q field, there remains a Z_Q discrete
symmetry. In a supersymmetric theory, holomorphy adds additional constraints on
the operators that can appear in the effective superpotential. As a result,
operators with the same mass dimension but opposite sign charges can have very
different coupling strengths. In the present work we characterize the operator
hierarchies in the effective theory due to holomorphy, and show that there
exist simple relationships between the size of an operator and its mass
dimension and charge. Using such holomorphy-induced operator hierarchies, we
construct a simple model with a naturally small supersymmetric mu term. This
model also provides a concrete realization of late-time thermal inflation,
which has the ability to solve the gravitino and moduli problems of weak-scale
supersymmetry.Comment: 18 pages, 1 figur
Inflation might be caused by the right
We show that the scalar field that drives inflation can have a dynamical
origin, being a strongly coupled right handed neutrino condensate. The
resulting model is phenomenologically tightly constrained, and can be
experimentally (dis)probed in the near future. The mass of the right handed
neutrino obtained this way (a crucial ingredient to obtain the right light
neutrino spectrum within the see-saw mechanism in a complete three generation
framework) is related to that of the inflaton and both completely determine the
inflation features that can be tested by current and planned experiments.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figure
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