Astrophysics

After reviewing the basics of Coleman deLuccia tunneling, especially in the thin-wall limit, I discuss an (almost) exact tunneling solution in a piecewise linear and quadratic potential. A comparison with the exact solution for a piecewise linear potential demonstrates the dependence of the tunneling rate on the exact shape of the potential. Finally, I will mention applications when determining initial conditions for inflation in the landscape. Based on arXiv:1102.4742 [hep-th].

One of the great promises of the Advanced LIGO era is the prospect of integrating gravitational wave astronomy into the greater astronomical community. This will allow for measurements that cross spectral bands and provide new paths for insight into some of the most violent processes in the universe. In this talk I'll discuss past and present efforts with Initial and Enhanced LIGO to search for transients with both electromagnetic and gravitational wave signatures, with special focus on electromagnetic followups of inspiral events and an eye towards the advanced detector era. In addition, I'll discuss some work on detecting gravitational waves with pulsar timing experiments, which seeks to bridge the gap between gravitational wave and electromagnetic astronomers in a different way.

At the time of recombination, 400,000 years after the Big Bang, the structure of the dark matter distribution was extremely simple and can be inferred directly from observations of structure in the cosmic microwave background. At this time dark matter particles had small thermal velocities and their distribution deviated from uniformity only through a gaussian field of small density fluctuations with associated motions. Later evolution was driven purely by gravity and so obeyed the collisionless Boltzmann equation. This has immediate consequences for the present distribution of dark matter, even in extremely nonlinear regions such as the part of the Galaxy where the Sun resides. I will show how this structure can be followed in full generality by integrating the Geodesic Deviation Equation in tandem with the equations of motion in a high-resolution N-body simulation, enhancing its effective resolution by more than 10 orders of magnitude. I will discuss how the predicted distribution at the Sun's position impacts the expectations for laboratory experiments seeking to detect the dark matter directly, in particular, the possibility of extremely narrow line signals that may be visible in axion detectors.

I propose late-time moduli decay as the common origin of baryons and dark matter. The baryon asymmetry is produced from the decay of new TeV scale particles, while dark matter is created from the chain decay of R-parity odd particles. The baryon and dark matter abundances are mainly controlled by the dilution factor from moduli decay, which is typically in the range 10^{-9}-10^{-7}. The exact number densities are determined by simple branching fractions from modulus decay, which are expected to be of similar order in the absence of symmetries. This scenario can naturally lead to the observed baryon asymmetry and, for moderate suppression of the two-body decays of the modulus to R-parity odd particles, can also yield the correct dark matter abundance in the 5-500 GeV mass range. I will present an explicit model for late-time baryogenesis along this line and discuss some of its cosmological and phenomenological consequences.

If the universe is a quantum mechanical system it has a quantum state. This state supplies a probabilistic measure for alternative histories of the universe. During eternal inflation these histories typically develop large inhomogeneities that lead to a mosaic structure on superhorizon scales consisting of homogeneous patches separated by inflating regions. As observers we do not see this structure directly. Rather our observations are confined to a small, nearly homogeneous region within our past light cone. This talk will describe how the probabilities for these observations can be calculated from the probabilities supplied by the quantum state without introducing a further ad hoc measure. The talk will emphasize the principles behind this result --- a quantum state, quantum spacetime leading to an ensemble of classical histories, quantum observers, a focus in local observations, and the use of coarse-grainings adapted to these observations. The principles will be illustrated in simple models in particular using the no-boundary wave function as a model of the quantum state. Applied to a model landscape we obtain specific predictions for features of the CMB spectrum and improvements in the `anthropic' bounds on the cosmological constant.

In this talk I will discuss a new class of cosmological scalar fields. Similarly to gravity, these theories are described by actions linearly depending on second derivatives. The latter can not be excluded without breaking the generally covariant formulation of the action principle. Despite the presence of these second derivatives the equations of motion are of the second order. Hence there are no new pathological degrees of freedom. Because of this structure of the theory the scalar field kinetically mixes with the metric without direct non-minimal couplings to curvature - the phenomenon we have called Kinetic Gravity Braiding. These theories have rather unusual cosmological dynamics which is useful to model Dark Energy and Inflation. I will discuss an equivalent hydrodynamical formulation of these theories and cosmological applications.

Did you know you could fit the entire human race in the volume of a sugar cube? Or that, if the Sun were made of bananas, it wouldn't make much difference? Or that 98 per cent of the Universe is invisible? Award-winning science writer Marcus Chown invites you to come along and discover how the Universe we live in is far stranger than anything we could possibly have invented.

I will present analytic solutions to a class of cosmological models described by a canonical scalar field minimally coupled to gravity and experiencing self interactions through a hyperbolic potential. Using models and methods of solution inspired by 2T-physics, I will show how analytic solutions can be obtained including radiation and spacial curvature. Among the analytic solutions, there are many interesting geodesically complete cyclic solutions, both singular and non-singular ones. Cyclic cosmological models provide an alternative to inflation for solving the horizon and flatness problems as well as generating scale-invariant perturbations. I will argue in favor of the geodesically complete solutions as being more attractive for constructing a more satisfactory model of cosmology. When geodesic completeness is imposed, it restricts models and their parameters to certain a parameter subspace, including some quantization conditions on parameters. I will explain the theoretical origin of our model from the point of view of 2T-gravity as well as from the point of view of the colliding branes scenario. If time permits, I will discuss how to associate solutions of the quantum Wheeler-deWitt equation with the classical analytic solutions, physical aspects of some of the cyclic solutions, and outline future directions.

Reducing a higher dimensional theory to a 4-dimensional effective theory results in a number of scalar fields describing, for instance, fluctuations of higher dimensional scalar fields (dilaton) or the volume of the compact space (volume modulus). But the fields in the effective theory must be constructed with care: artifacts from the higher dimensions, such as higher dimensional diffeomorphisms and constraint equations, can affect the identification of the degrees of freedom. The effective theory including these effects resembles in many ways cosmological perturbation theory. I will show how constraints and diffeomorphisms generically lead the dilaton and volume modulus to combine into a single degree of freedom in the effective theory, the "breathing mode". This has important implications for models of moduli stabilization and inflation with extra dimensions.

The existence of concentric low variance circles in the CMB sky, generated by black-hole encounters in an aeon preceding our big bang, is a prediction of the Conformal Cyclic Cosmology. Detection of three families of such circles in WMAP data was recently reported by Gurzadyan & Penrose (2010). We reassess the statistical significance of those circles by comparing with Monte Carlo simulations of the CMB sky with realistic modeling of the anisotropic noise in WMAP data. We find that the circles are not anomalous and that all three groups are consistent at 3sigma level with a Gaussian CMB sky as predicted by inflationary cosmology model.