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At least 703 records · Page 39
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2026

DESI DR2 Results IV: Alcock-Paczyński Measurements from the Lyman Alpha Forest and Cosmological Constraints

We present Alcock-Paczyński (AP) measurements from the full shape of Lyman-$α$ (Ly$α$) forest correlation functions measured from the second data release (DR2) of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI). Our measurements include information from the Ly$α$ forest auto-correlation and its cross-correlation with quasars. We constrain the AP effect with $1\%$ precision at an effective redshift $z_\mathrm{eff}=2.33$, which is twice as tight as the Baryon Acoustic Oscillation (BAO) constraint from the same data. When using the joint Ly$α$ AP and BAO results, we measure the ratios $D_\text{H}(z_\mathrm{eff})/r_\text{d}=8.600 \pm 0.066$ and $D_\text{M}(z_\mathrm{eff})/r_\text{d}=39.32 \pm 0.33$, where $D_\text{M}$ is the transverse comoving distance, $D_\text{H}$ is the Hubble distance, and $r_\text{d}$ is the sound horizon at the drag epoch. Assuming $Λ$CDM, Ly$α$ forest measurements combined with a nucleosynthesis prior produce a constraint on the Hubble constant $H_0=66.5\pm1.3\,\mathrm{km\,s^{-1}\,Mpc^{-1}}$. The Ly$α$ AP result corresponds to a matter fraction constraint $Ω_\text{m}=0.325\pm0.018$ in $Λ$CDM, which is $1.4σ$ higher than DESI BAO. This impacts the DESI results relative to the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), slightly reducing their discrepancy from $2.4σ$ to $2.2σ$. We present updated constraints on extended models using the joint DESI DR2 BAO and Ly$α$ forest full shape data, together with external data sets. When considering a time-evolving dark energy equation of state parametrized by $w_0$ and $w_a$, we find it is preferred over $Λ$CDM at $2.7σ$ for the combination of DESI and CMB data, and at $3.2σ$ when also including supernovae. With the new Ly$α$ AP measurement, DESI provides its most precise anchor for the expansion history at $z > 1$ in the matter-dominated Universe.

Adame, A. G. [Vienna U.] (ORCID:0009000505949391)↗
DOE OSTI2020

Performance of Al-Mn Transition-Edge Sensor Bolometers in SPT-3G

SPT-3G is a polarization-sensitive receiver, installed on the South Pole Telescope, that measures the anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) from degree to arcminute scales. The receiver consists of ten 150-mm-diameter detector wafers, containing a total of similar to 16,000transition-edge sensor (TES) bolometers observing at 95, 150, and 220 GHz. During the 2018-2019 austral summer, one of these detector wafers was replaced by a new wafer fabricated with Al-Mn TESs instead of the Ti/Au design originally deployed for SPT-3G. We present the results of in-laboratory characterization and on-sky performance of this Al-Mn wafer, including electrical and thermal properties, optical efficiency measurements, and noise-equivalent temperature. In addition, we discuss and account for several calibration-related systematic errors that affect measurements made using frequency-domain multiplexing readout electronics.

Al-Mn↗
DOE OSTI2020

Design and Performance of the First BICEP Array Receiver

Branches of cosmic inflationary models, such as slow-roll inflation, predict a background of primordial gravitational waves that imprints a unique odd-parity “B-mode” pattern in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) at amplitudes that are within experimental reach. The BICEP/Keck (BK) experiment targets this primordial signature, the amplitude of which is parameterized by the tensor-to-scalar ratio r, by observing the polarized microwave sky through the exceptionally clean and stable atmosphere at the South Pole. B-mode measurements require an instrument with exquisite sensitivity, tight control of systematics, and wide frequency coverage to disentangle the primordial signal from the Galactic foregrounds. BICEP Array represents the most recent stage of the BK program and comprises four BICEP3-class receivers observing at 30/40, 95, 150 and 220/270 GHz. The 30/40 GHz receiver will be deployed at the South Pole during the 2019/2020 austral summer. After 3 full years of observations with 30,000+ detectors, BICEP Array will measure primordial gravitational waves to a precision σ(r) between 0.002 and 0.004, depending on foreground complexity and the degree of lensing removal. Here in this paper, we give an overview of the instrument, highlighting the design features in terms of cryogenics, magnetic shielding, detectors and readout architecture as well as reporting on the integration and tests that are ongoing with the first receiver at 30/40 GHz.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Deployment of POLARBEAR-2b

POLARBEAR-2b (PB-2b) is the second receiver in the Simons Array, a cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization experiment. The Simons Array uses dichroic polarization sensitive lenslet-coupled sinuous antennas and transition-edge sensor (TES) bolometers made of superconducting films. These bolometers are read out with frequency multiplexing electronics. PB-2b contains ~7500 detectors in two bands at 90 and 150 GHz with arcminute resolution. The polarization of these detectors is modulated by a cryogenic continuously rotating half-wave plate. PB-2b was installed on its telescope in 2022 in the Atacama Desert at an altitude of 5.2 km. This paper will detail initial readout commissioning, test of a new loopgain monitoring method, and focusing the optics. Work is ongoing to commission the remaining ambient temperature readout electronics, measure detector time constants, and observe with the cryogenic half-wave plate spinning.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
NASA NTRS2002

Bolometric detectors for the high frequency instrument on the Planck surveyor

The High Frequency Instrument (HFI) on Planck will obtain all-sky images of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) and other astrophysical sources of emission with resolution of 9 arcniin at 100 GHz, 7 arcmin at 143 GHz and 5 arcniin at 217, 353, 545 and 857 GHz. The HFI focal plane will contain 48 silicon nitride micromesh bolometric detectors operating from a 100 mK heat sink. Four detectors in each of the 6 bands will detect the sum of the power in both linear polarizations. An additional 4 pair of detectors will provide sensitivity to linear polarization of emission at 143, 217 and 353 GHz. We report on the development of these detectors, which are being produced at the JPL Micro Devices Laboratory, packaged at JPL Electronics Packaging, characterized at 100 mK before delivery to our HFI consortium partners at the UWCC, UK.

Planck CMB bolometer↗
NASA NTRS2014

The Cosmology Large Angular Scale Surveyor (CLASS): 38 GHz Detector Array of Bolometric Polarimeters

The Cosmology Large Angular Scale Surveyor (CLASS) experiment aims to map the polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) at angular scales larger than a few degrees. Operating from Cerro Toco in the Atacama Desert of Chile, it will observe over 65% of the sky at 38, 93, 148, and 217 GHz. In this paper we discuss the design, construction, and characterization of the CLASS 38 GHz detector focal plane, the first ever Q-band bolometric polarimeter array.

CMB↗
DOE OSTI2023

Binary collisions of dark matter blobs

We describe the model-independent mechanism by which dark matter and dark matter structures heavier than ~ 8 × 10 11 GeV form binary pairs in the early Universe that spin down and merge both in the present and throughout the Universe’s history, producing potentially observable signals. Sufficiently dense dark objects will dominantly collide through binary mergers instead of random collisions. We detail how one would estimate the merger rate accounting for finite size effects, multibody interactions, and friction with the thermal bath. We predict how mergers of dark dense objects could be detected through gravitational and electromagnetic signals, noting that such mergers could be a unique source of high frequency gravitational waves. We rule out objects whose presence would contradict observations of the CMB and diffuse gamma-rays.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2020

In search of large signals at the cosmological collider

We look for oscillating signals in the primordial bispectrum from new physics heavy particles which are visibly large for next generation large scale structures (LSS) survey. We show that in ordinary inflation scenarios where a slow-rolling inflaton generates density fluctuations and with no breaking of scale invariance or spacetime symmetry, there exist no naturally large signals unless the rolling inflaton generates a parity-odd chemical potential for the heavy particles. We estimate the accessibility of this signal through observations. While current CMB data are already sensitive in the most optimistic scenario, future probes, including LSS survey and 21 cm observation, can cover interesting regions of the model space.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2022

Forbidden scalar dark matter and dark Higgses

As experimental searches for WIMP dark matter continue to yield null results, models beyond the WIMP paradigm have proliferated in order to elude ever improving observational constraints, among them that of sub-GeV dark matter mediated by a massive vector portal (a dark photon) associated with a new dark U(1) gauge symmetry. It has been previously noted that for a significant range of the parameter space of this class of models, the annihilation of dark matter particles into a pair of dark photons can dominate the freeze-out process even when this process is kinematically forbidden for dark matter at rest — this is known as the “forbidden dark matter” (FDM) regime. Prior studies of this regime, however, assume that any “dark Higgs” associated with breaking the dark U(1) and imparting mass to the dark photon is decoupled from the dark matter and as such plays no role in the freeze-out process. In this paper, we explore the effects of a dark Higgs on sub-GeV dark matter phenomenology in this FDM regime by considering the simplest possible construction in which there exist non-trivial dark matter-dark Higgs couplings: a model with a single complex scalar DM candidate coupled directly to the dark Higgs field. We find that for a wide range of parameter space, the dark Higgs can alter the resulting relic abundance by many orders of magnitude, and that this effect can remain significant even for a small dark matter-dark Higgs coupling constant. Considering measurements from direct detection and measurements of the CMB, we further find that points in this model’s parameter space which recreate the appropriate dark matter relic abundance suffer only mild constraints from other sources at present, but may become accessible in near-future direct detection experiments.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Boosted dark matter from primordial black holes produced in a first-order phase transition

During a cosmological first-order phase transition in a dark sector, fermion dark matter particles χ can form macroscopic Fermi balls that collapse to primordial black holes (PBHs) under certain conditions. The evaporation of the PBHs produces a boosted χ flux, which may be detectable if χ couples to visible matter. We consider the interaction of χ with electrons, and calculate signals of the dark matter flux in the XENON1T, XENONnT, Super-Kamiokande and Hyper-Kamiokande experiments. A correlated gravitational wave signal from the phase transition can be observed at THEIA and μAres. An amount of dark radiation measurable by CMB-S4 is an epiphenomenon of the phase transition.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Gravitational waves from an inflation triggered first-order phase transition

Large excursion of the inflaton field can trigger interesting dynamics. One important example is a first-order phase transition in a spectator sector which couples to the inflaton. Gravitational waves (GWs) from such a first-order phase transition during inflation, an example of an instantaneous source, have an oscillatory feature. In this work, we show that this feature is generic for a source in an era of accelerated expansion. We also demonstrate that the shape of the GW signal contains information about the evolution of the early universe following the phase transition. In particular, the slope of the infrared part of the GW spectrum is sensitive to the evolution of the Hubble parameter when the GW modes reenter the horizon after inflation. The slope of the profile of the intermediate oscillatory part and the ultraviolet part of the GW spectrum depend on the evolution of the Hubble parameter when the modes exit horizon during the inflation and when they reenter the horizon during the reheating. The ultraviolet spectrum also depends on the details of the dynamics of the phase transition. We consider the GW signal in several models of evolution during and after inflation, and compare them with the minimal scenario of quasi- de Sitter inflation followed by radiation domination after a fast reheating, and demonstrate that the shape of the GW can be used to distinguish them. In this way, the GW signal considered in this paper offers a powerful probe to the dynamics of the early universe which is otherwise difficult to explore directly through CMB, large scale structure, big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN), and other well-studied cosmological observables.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2025

Lepton flavor asymmetries: from the early Universe to BBN

Large primordial lepton flavor asymmetries with almost vanishing total baryon-minus-lepton number can evade the usual BBN and CMB constraints if neutrino oscillations lead to perfect flavor equilibration. Solving the momentum averaged quantum kinetic equations (QKEs) describing neutrino oscillations and interactions, we perform the first systematic investigation of this scenario, uncovering a rich flavor structure in stark contradiction to the assumption of simple flavor equilibration. We find (i) a particular direction in flavor space, ∆ne ≃ – 2/3 (– 1)∆n μ for normal (inverted) neutrino mass hierarchy, in which the flavor equilibration is efficient and primordial asymmetries are essentially unconstrained, (ii) a minimal washout factor, ∆$n_{e}^{2}$| BBN ≤ 0.03 (0.016) ∑ α ∆$n_{α}^{2}$| ini yielding a conservative estimate for the allowed primordial asymmetries in a generic flavor direction, and (iii) particularly strong or weak washout if one of the initial flavor asymmetries vanishes due to non-adiabatic muon- or electron-driven MSW transitions. These results open up the possibility of a first-order QCD phase transition facilitated by large lepton asymmetries as well as baryogenesis from large and compensated ∆n e = ∆n μ asymmetries. Our systematic approach of deriving momentum averaged QKEs includes collision terms beyond the damping approximation, energy transfer between the neutrino and electron-photon plasma, and provides a fast and reliable way to investigate the impact of primordial lepton asymmetries at the time of BBN. We publicly release the Mathematica code COFLASY-M on https://github.com/mariofnavarro/COFLASY which solves the QKEs numerically.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Cosmic millicharge background and reheating probes

We demonstrate that the searches for dark sector particles can provide probes of reheating scenarios, focusing on the cosmic millicharge background produced in the early universe. We discuss two types of millicharge particles (mCPs): either with, or without, an accompanying dark photon. These two types of mCPs have distinct theoretical motivations and cosmological signatures. We discuss constraints from the overproduction and mCP-baryon interactions of the mCP without an accompanying dark photon, with different reheating temperatures. We also consider the ∆n eff constraints on the mCPs from kinetic mixing, varying the reheating temperature. The regions of interest in which the accelerator and other experiments can probe the reheating scenarios are identified in this paper for both scenarios. These probes can potentially allow us to set an upper bound on the reheating temperature down to ~ 10 MeV, much lower than the previously considered upper bound from inflationary cosmology at around ~ 10 16 GeV. In addition, we derive a new “distinguishability condition”, in which the two mCP scenarios may be differentiated by combining cosmological and theoretical considerations. Finally, we discuss the implications of dedicated mCP searches, future CMB-S4 observations, and the target for experiments when considering the minimally allowed reheating temperature.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Naturally light Dirac and pseudo-Dirac neutrinos from left-right symmetry

We develop a class of left-right symmetric theories based on the gauge group SU(3) c x SU(2) L x SU(2) R x U(1) with a generalized seesaw mechanism for generating the charged fermion masses. Neutrinos are naturally Dirac particles in this setup with their small masses arising from two-loop quantum corrections. We evaluate these two-loop diagrams exactly and analyze the flavor structure of the lepton sector. We find excellent fits to neutrino oscillation data, independent of the right-handed gauge symmetry breaking scale. We also explore the possibility that neutrinos are pseudo-Dirac particles in this framework, with the tiny mass splittings between active and sterile neutrinos arising from Planck-induced corrections and find possible realizations. These models can be tested in the near future with precision cosmological measurements of ΔN eff in CMB which is predicted to be ≃ 0.14. This class of models allows for a solution to the strong CP problem via parity symmetry without the need for an axion.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2022

Searching for dark radiation at the LHC

In this work we explore the intriguing connections between searches for long-lived particles (LLPs) at the LHC and early universe cosmology. We study the non-thermal production of ultra-relativistic particles (i.e. dark radiation) in the early universe via the decay of weak-scale LLPs and show that the cosmologically interesting range ΔN eff ~ 0.01–0.1 corresponds to LLP decay lengths in the mm to cm range. These decay lengths lie at the boundary between prompt and displaced signatures at the LHC and can be comprehensively explored by combining searches for both. To illustrate this point, we consider a scenario where the LLP decays into a charged lepton and a (nearly) massless invisible particle. By reinterpreting searches for promptly decaying sleptons and for displaced leptons at both ATLAS and CMS we can then directly compare LHC exclusions with cosmological observables. We find that the CMB-S4 target value of ΔN eff = 0.06 is already excluded by current LHC searches and even smaller values can be probed for LLP masses at the electroweak scale.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Scalar Co-SIMP dark matter: models and sensitivities

In this work, we present UV completions of the recently proposed number-changing Co-SIMP freeze-out mechanism. In contrast to the standard cannibalistic-type dark matter picture that occurs entirely in the dark sector, the 3 → 2 process setting the relic abundance in this case requires one Standard Model particle in the initial and final states. This prevents the dark sector from overheating and leads to rich experimental signatures. We generate the Co-SIMP interaction with a dark sector consisting of two scalars, with the mediator coupling to either nucleons or electrons. In either case, the dark matter candidate is naturally light : nucleophilic interactions favor the sub-GeV mass range and leptophilic interactions favor the sub-MeV mass range. Viable thermal models in these lighter mass regimes are particularly intriguing to study at this time, as new developments in low-threshold detector technologies will begin probing this region of parameter space. While particles in the sub-MeV regime can potentially impact light element formation and CMB decoupling, we show that a late-time phase transition opens up large fractions of parameter space. These thermal light dark matter models can instead be tested with dedicated experiments. We discuss the viable parameter space in each scenario in light of the current sensitivity of various experimental probes and projected future reach.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗