Astrophysics

Not only general relativity but also quantum theory plays important roles in current cosmology. Quantum fluctuations of matter fields are supposed to have provided the initial seeds of all the structure of the current universe, and quantum gravity is assumed to have been essential in the earliest stages. Both issues are not fully understood, although several heuristic effects have been discussed. In this talk, implications of an effective framework taking into account the coupling of matter and gravity are discussed. This touches on interpretational issues of quantum mechanics, cosmological observations and properties of quantum gravity.

The best studied class of dark matter candidates in Supersymmetric theories is the WIMP, Weakly Interacting Massive Particles, which makes cold dark matter. There is a well-motivated alternative to the WIMP -- dark matter populated by decays of WIMPs. This dark matter from decays is closer in spirit to warm dark matter. They can be distinguished from cold dark matter by observations of structure on scales smaller than about a megaparsec, where cold dark matter models seem to face difficulty. Big Bang Nucleosynthesis predictions are also modified in interesting ways.

Experiments have ruled out unit-strength scalar-mediated fifth forces on scales ranging from 0.1 mm to 10,000 AU. However, allowing the scalar to have a quartic self-interaction weakens these constraints considerably. This weakening is due to the "chameleon mechanism", which gives the scalar field an effective mass that depends on the local matter density. I will describe the chameleon mechanism and discuss experimental constraints on self-interacting scalar fields. In particular, I will compare the chameleon-mediated self interaction to constraints from the Eot-Wash experiment, at the University of Washington, which comes closest to detecting such a scalar field today. It will be shown that a quartic self interaction of unit strength is just out of reach of the current Eot-Wash experiment, but will be readily visible to their next-generation instrument.

It has recently been proposed by Nayeri, Brandenberger and Vafa, that the thermodynamics of strings in the early universe can provide us with a causal mechanism to generate a scale invariant spectrum of primordial density fluctuations, without requiring an intervening epoch of inflation. We will review this mechanism, and report on more recent work which has uncovered several observational consequences of the NBV mechanism, some of which in principle, will be distinguishable from the generic predictions of inflation.

We propose a new brane world scenario. In our model, the Universe starts as a small bulk filled with a dense gas of branes. The bulk is bounded by two orbifold fixed planes. An initial stage of isotropic expansion ends once a weak potential between the orbifold fixed planes begins to dominate, leading to contraction of the extra spatial dimensions. Depending on the form of the potential, one may obtain either a non-inflationary scenario which solves the entropy and horizon problem, or an improved brane-antibrane inflation model.