Talks

The availability of high precision observational data in cosmology means that it is possible to go beyond simple descriptions of cosmic inflation in which the expansion is driven by a single scalar field. One set of models of particular interest involve the Dirac-Born-Infeld (DBI) action, arising in string cosmology, in which the dynamics of the field are affected by a speed limit in a manner akin to special relativity. In this talk, I will introduce a scalar-tensor theory in which the matter component is a field with a DBI action. Transforming to the Einstein frame, I will explore the effect of the resulting coupling on the background dynamics of the fields and the first-order perturbations. The coupling forces the scalar field into the minimum of its effective potential, so the dynamics are determined by the DBI field, which has the interesting effect of increasing the number of efolds of inflation and decreasing the boost factor of the DBI field. Focusing on this case, I will show that the power spectrum of the primordial perturbations is determined by the behaviour of the perturbations of the modified DBI field and calculate the effect of varying the model parameters on the inflationary observables.

Primodial magnetic fields are a potentially interesting origin for cosmic magnetism. Such fields can leave an interesting signal not only in the CMB temperature and polarization, but in structure at low redshift, contributing to the matter power spectrum and SZ effect at small scales. I will talk about the reasons for considering primordial fields, their origin and evolution, and how their observational consequences constrain their nature.

We show that ordinary and radiative muon capture impose stringent constraints on sterile neutrino properties. In particular, we consider a sterile neutrino with a mass between $40$ and $80~{\rm MeV}$ that has a large mixing with the muon neutrino and decays predominantly into a photon and light neutrinos due to a large transition magnetic moment. Such a model was suggested as a possible resolution to the puzzle presented by the results of the LSND, KARMEN, and MiniBooNE experiments. We find that the scenario with the radiative decay to massless neutrinos is ruled out by measurements of the radiative muon capture rates at TRIUMF in the relevant mass range by a factor of a few in the squared mixing angle. These constraints are complementary to those imposed by the process of electromagnetic upscattering and de-excitation of beam neutrinos inside the neutrino detectors induced by a large transition magnetic moment. The latter provide stringent constraints on the size of the transitional magnetic moment between muon, electron neutrinos and $N$. We also show that further extension of the model with another massive neutrino in the final state of the radiative decay may be used to bypass the constraints derived in this work.

Over the coming decade, tiny fluctuations in temperature and polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) will be mapped with unprecedented resolution. The Planck Surveyor, the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT), and the South Pole Telescope (SPT) are already making great advances. In a few years, high resolution polarization experiments, such as PolarBear, ACTPol, and SPTPol will be in full swing. While these new arc-minute resolution observations will continue to help constrain the physics of the early universe, they will also be unique in a new way - they will allow us to measure the gravitational lensing of the CMB, i.e., the deflection of CMB photons by intervening large scale structure. CMB lensing will probe the growth of structure over cosmic time, helping constrain the total mass of neutrinos and the behavior of dark energy. In the first part of the talk, I will review the recent progress made with ACT, a powerful tool with new capabilities. In the second part, I will discuss the scientific potential of the CMB lensing signal, and its various applications in cross-correlation with other datasets. Finally, I will discuss the upcoming polarized counterpart of ACT --- the ACTPol project, which will have sixteen times better mapping speed than ACT, and will be a premier CMB lensing experiment. I will describe our plans to extract different flavors of science from the ACTPol data, including the cross-correlations with optical lensing and galaxy surveys, such as SDSS, BOSS, DES and LSST.