Search results for " Background"
showing 10 items of 316 documents
Sterile Neutrinos in Light of Recent Cosmological and Oscillation Data: a Multi-Flavor Scheme Approach
2008
Light sterile neutrinos might mix with the active ones and be copiously produced in the early Universe. In the present paper, a detailed multi-flavor analysis of sterile neutrino production is performed. Making some justified approximations allows us to consider not only neutrino interactions with the primeval medium and neutrino coherence breaking effects, but also oscillation effects arising from the presence of three light (mostly-active) neutrino states mixed with two heavier (mostly-sterile) states. First, we emphasize the underlying physics via an analytical description of sterile neutrino abundances that is valid for cases with small mixing between active and sterile neutrinos. Then,…
Dark radiation sterile neutrino candidates after Planck data
2013
Recent Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) results from the Planck satellite, combined with previous CMB data and Hubble constant measurements from the Hubble Space Telescope, provide a constraint on the effective number of relativistic degrees of freedom 3.62(-0.48)(+0.50) at 95% CL. New Planck data provide a unique opportunity to place limits on models containing relativistic species at the decoupling epoch. We present here the bounds on sterile neutrino models combining Planck data with galaxy clustering information. Assuming N-eff active plus sterile massive neutrino species, in the case of a Planck+WP+HighL+HST analysis we find m(nu,sterile)(eff) < 0.36 eV and 3.14 < N-eff < 4.15 at 95% …
Testing LTB void models without the cosmic microwave background or large scale structure: new constraints from galaxy ages
2012
We present new observational constraints on inhomogenous models based on observables independent of the CMB and large-scale structure. Using Bayesian evidence we find very strong evidence for homogeneous LCDM model, thus disfavouring inhomogeneous models. Our new constraints are based on quantities independent of the growth of perturbations and rely on cosmic clocks based on atomic physics and on the local density of matter.
Search for Tensor, Vector, and Scalar Polarizations in the Stochastic Gravitational-Wave Background
2018
The detection of gravitational waves with Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo has enabled novel tests of general relativity, including direct study of the polarization of gravitational waves. While general relativity allows for only two tensor gravitational-wave polarizations, general metric theories can additionally predict two vector and two scalar polarizations. The polarization of gravitational waves is encoded in the spectral shape of the stochastic gravitational-wave background, formed by the superposition of cosmological and individually-unresolved astrophysical sources. Using data recorded by Advanced LIGO during its first observing run, we search for a stochastic background of generic…
Coupled dark matter-dark energy in light of near Universe observations
2010
Cosmological analysis based on currently available observations are unable to rule out a sizeable coupling among the dark energy and dark matter fluids. We explore a variety of coupled dark matter-dark energy models, which satisfy cosmic microwave background constraints, in light of low redshift and near universe observations. We illustrate the phenomenology of different classes of dark coupling models, paying particular attention in distinguishing between effects that appear only on the expansion history and those that appear in the growth of structure. We find that while a broad class of dark coupling models are effectively models where general relativity (GR) is modified - and thus can b…
Cosmological lepton asymmetry with a nonzero mixing angle \theta13
2012
While the baryon asymmetry of the Universe is nowadays well measured by cosmological observations, the bounds on the lepton asymmetry in the form of neutrinos are still significantly weaker. We place limits on the relic neutrino asymmetries using some of the latest cosmological data, taking into account the effect of flavor oscillations. We present our results for two different values of the neutrino mixing angle \theta_{13}, and show that for large \theta_{13} the limits on the total neutrino asymmetry become more stringent, diluting even large initial flavor asymmetries. In particular, we find that the present bounds are still dominated by the limits coming from Big Bang Nucleosynthesis, …
Cosmological analogies in the search for new physics in high-energy collisions
2020
In this paper, analogies between multiparticle production in high-energy collisions and the time evolution of the early universe are discussed. A common explanation is put forward under the assumption of an unconventional early state: a rapidly expanding universe before recombination (last scattering surface), followed by the CMB, later evolving up to present days, versus the formation of hidden/dark states in hadronic collisions followed by a conventional QCD parton shower yielding final-state particles. In particular, long-range angular correlations are considered pointing out deep connections between the two physical cases potentially useful for the discovery of new physics.
TeV gamma-ray survey of the Northern sky using the ARGO-YBJ detector
2013
The ARGO-YBJ detector is an extensive air shower array that has been used to monitor the northern $\gamma$-ray sky at energies above 0.3 TeV from 2007 November to 2013 January. In this paper, we present the results of a sky survey in the declination band from $-10^{\circ}$ to $70^{\circ}$, using data recorded over the past five years. With an integrated sensitivity ranging from 0.24 to $\sim$1 Crab units depending on the declination, six sources have been detected with a statistical significance greater than 5 standard deviations. Several excesses are also reported as potential $\gamma$-ray emitters. The features of each source are presented and discussed. Additionally, $95\%$ confidence le…
CMB Anisotropy Computations Using Hydra Gas Code
2014
From FFP6 to FFP11, we presented the advances in our Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropy computations using N-body Hydra Codes. For such computations, codes without baryons were used: First sequential versions and afterwards parallel ones. With both of them we computed the weak lensing and the Rees-Sciama contributions to the CMB angular power spectrum. Using our numerical techniques, we reported a lensing effect higher than that estimated in previous papers (for very small angular scales). Our CMB computations require less interpolations and approximations than other approaches. This could explain part of our excess of power in lensing computations. Our higher time and angular res…
A New Numerical Approach to Estimate the Sunyaev–Zel’dovich Effect
2013
Several years ago, we designed a particular ray tracing method. Combined with a Hydra parallel code (without baryons), it may compute some CMB anisotropies: weak lensing (WL) and Rees–Sciama (RS) effects. Only dark matter is fully necessary to estimate these effects. For very small angular scales, we made an exhaustive study leading to a lensing contribution slightly—but significantly—greater than previous ones. Afterwards, the same ray tracing procedure was included in a parallel Hydra code with baryons. The resulting code was then tested. This code is being currently applied to the study of the thermal and kinetic Sunyaev–Zel’dovich (SZ) contributions to the CMB anisotropies. We present h…