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At least 181 records · Page 10
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2022

Quantum gravity phenomenology at the dawn of the multi-messenger era—A review

The exploration of the universe has recently entered a new era thanks to the multi-messenger paradigm, characterized by a continuous increase in the quantity and quality of experimental data that is obtained by the detection of the various cosmic messengers (photons, neutrinos, cosmic rays and gravitational waves) from numerous origins. They give us information about their sources in the universe and the properties of the intergalactic medium. Moreover, multi-messenger astronomy opens up the possibility to search for phenomenological signatures of quantum gravity. On the one hand, the most energetic events allow us to test our physical theories at energy regimes which are not directly accessible in accelerators; on the other hand, tiny effects in the propagation of very high energy particles could be amplified by cosmological distances. After decades of merely theoretical investigations, the possibility of obtaining phenomenological indications of Planck-scale effects is a revolutionary step in the quest for a quantum theory of gravity, but it requires cooperation between different communities of physicists (both theoretical and experimental). This review, prepared within the COST Action CA18108 “Quantum gravity phenomenology in the multi-messenger approach”, is aimed at promoting this cooperation by giving a state-of-the art account of the interdisciplinary expertise that is needed in the effective search of quantum gravity footprints in the production, propagation and detection of cosmic messengers.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2020

The vecro hypothesis

We consider three fundamental issues in quantum gravity: (a) the black hole information paradox (b) the unboundedness of entropy that can be stored inside a black hole horizon (c) the relation between the black hole horizon and the cosmological horizon. With help from the small corrections theorem, we convert each of these issues into a sharp conflict. We then argue that all three conflicts can be resolved by the following hypothesis: the vacuum wave functional of quantum gravity contains a “vecro” component made of virtual fluctuations of configurations of the same type that arise in the fuzzball structure of black hole microstates. Further, if we assume that causality holds to leading order in gently curved spacetime, then we must have such a vecro component in order to resolve the above conflicts. The term vecro stands for “Virtual Extended Compression-Resistant Object”, and characterizes the nature of the vacuum fluctuations that resolve the puzzles. It is interesting that puzzle (c) may relate the role of quantum gravity in black holes to observations in the sky.

Astronomy & Astrophysics↗
DOE OSTI2022

Distinctive signals of frustrated dark matter

We study a renormalizable model of Dirac fermion dark matter (DM) that communicates with the Standard Model (SM) through a pair of mediators — one scalar, one fermion — in the representation (6, 1, $\frac{4}{3}$) of the SM gauge group SU(3) c x SU(2) L x U(1) Y . While such assignments preclude direct coupling of the dark matter to the Standard Model at tree level, we examine the many effective operators generated at one-loop order when the mediators are heavy, and find that they are often phenomenologically relevant. We reinterpret dijet and pair-produced resonance and jets + E$^{miss}_{T}$ searches at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in order to constrain the mediator sector, and we examine an array of DM constraints ranging from the observed relic density Ω χ h$^{2}_{Planck}$ to indirect and direct searches for dark matter. Tree-level annihilation, available for DM masses starting at the TeV scale, is required in order to produce Ω χ h$^{2}_{Planck}$ through freeze-out, but loops — led by the dimension-five DM magnetic dipole moment — are nonetheless able to produce signals large enough to be constrained, particularly by the XENON1T experiment. In some benchmarks, we find a fair amount of parameter space left open by experiment and compatible with freeze-out. In other scenarios, however, the open space is quite small, suggesting a need for further model-building and/or non-standard cosmologies.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2021

The inflationary wavefunction from analyticity and factorization

Here, we study the analytic properties of tree-level wavefunction coefficients in quasi-de Sitter space. We focus on theories which spontaneously break dS boost symmetries and can produce significant non-Gaussianities. The corresponding inflationary correlators are (approximately) scale invariant, but are not invariant under the full conformal group. We derive cutting rules and dispersion formulas for the late-time wavefunction coefficients by using factorization and analyticity properties of the dS bulk-to-bulk propagator. This gives a unitarity method which is valid at tree-level for general n-point functions and for fields of arbitrary mass. Using the cutting rules and dispersion formulas, we are able to compute n-point functions by gluing together lower-point functions. As an application, we study general four-point, scalar exchange diagrams in the EFT of inflation. We show that exchange diagrams constructed from boost-breaking interactions can be written as a finite sum over residues. Finally, we explain how the dS identities used in this work are related by analytic continuation to analogous identities in Anti-de Sitter space.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Using Pulsar Parameter Drifts to Detect Subnanohertz Gravitational Waves

Gravitational waves with frequencies below 1 nHz are notoriously difficult to detect. With periods exceeding current experimental lifetimes, they induce slow drifts in observables rather than periodic correlations. Observables with well-known intrinsic contributions provide a means to probe this regime. In this Letter, we demonstrate the viability of using observed pulsar timing parameters to discover such “ultralow” frequency gravitational waves, presenting two complementary observables for which the systematic shift induced by ultralow-frequency gravitational waves can be extracted. Using existing data for these parameters, we search the ultralow-frequency regime for continuous-wave signals, finding a sensitivity near the expected prediction from inspirals of supermassive black holes. We do not see an excess in the data, setting a limit on the strain of 1.3 × 10 –12 at 450 pHz with a sensitivity dropping approximately quadratically with frequency until 10 pHz. Finally, our search method opens a new frequency range for gravitational wave detection and has profound implications for astrophysics, cosmology, and particle physics.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2024

New horizons in the holographic conformal phase transition

Abstract We describe 5D dynamical cosmological solutions of the stabilized holographic dilaton and their role in completion of the conformal phase transition. This analysis corresponds, via the AdS/CFT dictionary, to a study of out-of-equilibrium dynamics where trajectories of the dilaton do not depend solely on thermodynamic quantities in the early universe, but have sensitivity also to initial conditions. Unlike the well-studied thermal transition, which requires quantum tunneling of an infrared brane through the surface of an AdS-Schwarzschild horizon, our approach instead invokes an early epoch in which the cosmology is fully 5-dimensional, with highly relativistic brane motion and with Rindler horizons obscuring the infrared brane at early times. In this context, we demonstrate the existence of a large class of natural initial conditions that seed trajectories where the brane simply passes through the Rindler horizon and into the basin of attraction of the stabilized dilaton potential. This corresponds to successful completion of the phase transition without sacrificing perturbativity of the 5D theory.

Physics↗
DOE OSTI2021

Optimal filters for the moving lens effect

We assess the prospects for detecting the moving lens effect using cosmological surveys. The bulk motion of cosmological structure induces a small-scale dipolar temperature anisotropy of the cosmic microwave radiation, centered around halos and oriented along the transverse velocity field. We introduce a set of optimal filters for this signal and forecast that a high significance detection can be made with upcoming experiments. We discuss the prospects for reconstructing the bulk transverse velocity field on large scales using matched filters, finding good agreement with previous work using quadratic estimators.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2021

Some aspects of the five-dimensional Lovelock black hole spacetime: Strong homotopy retract, perihelion precession and quasistationary levels

Highlights: • Some topological aspects are explored. • The perihelion precession is calculated. • The general Heun functions are applied to obtain analytical solutions. • The quasibound states and the radial wave eigenfunctions are obtained. In this work we explore some mathematical physics aspects of the spherically symmetric Lovelock black hole in high dimensions. Intended for this aim, we thoroughly consider the metric corresponding to the five-dimensional Lovelock black hole spacetime. We construct the strong retractions by the geodesic equations on the background under consideration. As a result, from the topological point of view, we construct the theory of strong homotopy retract, which will allow us, in principle, to better understand some of its suitable applications on astrophysics and cosmology, in particular, in the analysis of the spacetime singularities. We find the solutions of the equation of motion for both radial and angular coordinates, and then we describe the outer (“exterior”) and lower (“interior”) apparent horizons. Indeed, the outer apparent horizon is the last surface from which the light waves could still escape from the black hole. Thus, it is meaningful to analyze some physical phenomena related to quantum particles propagating outside the exterior apparent horizon, in particular, we discuss the quasistationary levels of scalar fields and their radial wave functions, which are given in terms of the general Heun functions. We also calculate the perihelion precession in this background.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2021

Testing $f(R)$ gravity with scale dependent cosmic void velocity profiles

Here, we study the impact of cosmological scale modifications to general relativity on the dynamics of halos within voids by comparing N-body simulations incorporating Hu-Sawicki f(R) gravity, with |f R0 | = 10 -6 and 10 -5 , to those of Λ CDM. By examining the radial velocity statistics within voids classified based on their size and density-profile, as “rising” (R-type) or “shell” (S-type), we find that halo motions in small R-type voids, with effective radius <15 Mpc/h, reveal distinctive differences between f(R) and Λ CDM cosmologies. To understand this observed effect, we study the linear and nonlinear fifth forces, and develop an iterative algorithm to accurately solve the nonlinear fifth force equation. We use this to characterize the Chameleon screening mechanism in voids and contrast the behavior with that observed in gravitationally collapsed objects. The force analysis underscores how smaller R-type voids exhibit the highest ratios of fifth force to Newtonian force, which source distinguishable differences in the velocity profiles and thereby provide rich environments in which to constrain gravity.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2022

Freeze-in, glaciation, and UV sensitivity from light mediators

Dark matter (DM) freeze-in through a light mediator is an appealing model with excellent detection prospects at current and future experiments. Light mediator freeze-in is UV-insensitive insofar as most DM is produced at late times, and thus the DM abundance does not depend on the unknown early evolution of our universe. However the final DM yield retains a dependence on the initial DM population, which is usually assumed to be exactly zero. We point out that in models with light mediators, the final DM yield will also depend on the initial conditions assumed for the light mediator population. We describe a class of scenarios we call “glaciation” where DM freezing in from the SM encounters a pre-existing thermal bath of mediators, and study the dependence of the final DM yield on the initial temperature of this dark radiation bath. To compute DM scattering rates in this cosmology, we derive for the first time an exact integral expression for the Boltzmann collision term describing interactions between two species at different temperatures. We quantify the dependence of the DM yield on the initial dark temperature and find that it can be sizeable in regions near the traditional (zero initial abundance) freeze-in curve. We generalize the freeze-in curve to a glaciation band, which can extend as much as an order of magnitude below the traditional freeze-in direct detection target, and point out that the DM phase space distribution as well as the yield can be strongly dependent on initial conditions.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2022

Axion anomalies

We study fermions derivatively coupled to axion-like or pseudoscalar fields, and show that the axial vector current of the fermions is not conserved in the limit where the fermion is massless. This apparent violation of the classical chiral symmetry is due to the background axion field. We compute the contributions to this anomalous Ward identity due to the pseudoscalar field alone, which arise in Minkowski space, as well as the effects due to an interaction with an external gravitational field. For the case of massless fermions, these interactions induce terms in the axion effective action that can be removed by the addition of local counterterms. We demonstrate that these counterterms are generated by the transformation of the path integral measure when transforming the theory from a form where the chiral symmetry is manifest to one where the symmetry is only apparent after using the classical equations of motion. We work perturbatively in Minkowski space and include the effects of interactions with a linearized gravitational field. Using the heat kernel method, we study the transformation properties of the path integral measure, and include the effects of non-linear gravity as well as interactions with gauge fields. Finally, we verify our relation by considering derivatively coupled fermions during pseudoscalar-driven inflation and computing the divergence of the axial current in de Sitter spacetime.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2021

Axion constraints from quiescent soft gamma-ray emission from magnetars

We report axion-like-particles (ALPs) emitted from the core of a magnetar can convert to photons in its magnetosphere. The resulting photon flux is sensitive to the product of (i) the ALP-nucleon coupling G an which controls the production cross section in the core and (ii) the ALP-photon coupling g aγγ which controls the conversion in the magnetosphere. We study such emissions in the soft-gamma-ray range (300 keV to 1 MeV), where the ALP spectrum peaks and astrophysical backgrounds from resonant Compton up scattering are expected to be suppressed. Using published quiescent soft-gamma-ray flux upper limits in five magnetars obtained with CGRO COMPTEL and INTEGRAL SPI/IBIS/ISGRI, we put limits on the product of the ALP-nucleon and ALP-photon couplings. We also provide a detailed study of the dependence of our results on the magnetar core temperature. We further show projections of our result for future Fermi-GBM observations. Our results motivate a program of studying quiescent soft-gamma-ray emission from magnetars with the Fermi-GBM.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2024

Co-design for Particle Applications at Exascale

Co-design across the Exascale Computing Project (ECP) has been critical for both enabling science applications and bringing disparate communities together. Developing and porting applications to the various high-performance computing (HPC) architectures on pre-exascale and exascale computers has been quite challenging due to the diversity of hardware features and software stacks. The Co-design Center for Particle Applications (CoPA) has developed and enhanced the Cabana and PROGRESS/BML libraries to facilitate the creation of new particle applications, make existing particle applications exascale capable, and allow teams to explore new capabilities. Particle methods from atomistic, mesoscale, continuum, through cosmological scales have been built with Cabana, along with new possibilities for application coupling. Similarly, the PROGRESS/BML library has enabled quantum particle applications with linear algebra solvers to use advanced hardware. Across these CoPA-developed libraries, the co-design abstraction layer combines performance portability with math library support to facilitate separation of concerns and directly support science runs.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2021

Constraints on f ( R ) and normal-branch Dvali-Gabadadze-Porrati modified gravity model parameters with cluster abundances and galaxy clustering

In this report we present forecasted cosmological constraints from combined measurements of galaxy cluster abundances from the Simons Observatory and galaxy clustering from a DESI-like experiment on two well-studied modified gravity models, the chameleon-screened Hu-Sawicki f(R) model and the nDGP braneworld Vainshtein model. A Fisher analysis is conducted using σ 8 constraints derived from thermal Sunyaev-Zel’dovich (tSZ) selected galaxy clusters as well as linear and quasilinear redshift-space 2-point galaxy correlation functions. We find that the cluster abundances drive the constraints on the nDGP model while f(R) constraints are led by galaxy clustering. The two tracers of the cosmological gravitational field are found to be complementary, and their combination significantly improves constraints on the f(R) in particular in comparison to each individual tracer alone. For a model of f(R) with a general relativity (GR) fiducial case (f R0 = 0), we find a 2-σ upper limit of f R0 ≤ 5.68 x10 -7 . For the well-studied log-based fiducial parameter value in f(R), log 10 (f R0 ) = -5, paired with the parameter value n = 1, we find combined 1-σ constraints of σ(log 10 (f R0 )) = 0.12 and σ(n) = 0.36. For the nDGP model with fiducial n nDGP = 1 we find σ( n nDGP ) = 0.087. Our results present the exciting potential to utilize upcoming galaxy and CMB survey data available in the near future to discern and/or constrain cosmic deviations from GR.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2021

Neutrino-assisted early dark energy: theory and cosmology

Abstract The tension between measurements of the Hubble constant obtained at different redshifts may provide a hint of new physics active in the relatively early universe, around the epoch of matter-radiation equality. A leading paradigm to resolve the tension is a period of early dark energy, in which a scalar field contributes a subdominant part of the energy budget of the universe at this time. This scenario faces significant fine-tuning problems which can be ameliorated by a non-trivial coupling of the scalar to the standard model neutrinos. These become non-relativistic close to the time of matter-radiation equality, resulting in an energy injection into the scalar that kick-starts the early dark energy phase, explaining its coincidence with this seemingly unrelated epoch. We present a minimal version of this neutrino-assisted early dark energy model, and perform a detailed analysis of its predictions and theoretical constraints. We consider both particle physics constraints — that the model constitute a well-behaved effective field theory for which the quantum corrections are under control, so that the relevant predictions are within its regime of validity — and the constraints provided by requiring a consistent cosmological evolution from early through to late times. Our work paves the way for testing this scenario using cosmological data sets.

Astronomy & Astrophysics↗