Search results for " Cosmology"
showing 10 items of 1486 documents
Observational properties of feebly coupled dark matter
2016
We show that decoupled hidden sectors can have observational consequences. As a representative model example, we study dark matter production in the Higgs portal model with one real singlet scalar $s$ coupled to the Standard Model Higgs via $\lambda_{\rm hs}\Phi^\dagger\Phi s^2$ and demonstrate how the combination of non-observation of cosmological isocurvature perturbations and astrophysical limits on dark matter self-interactions imply stringent bounds on the magnitude of the scalar self-coupling $\lambda_{\rm s}s^4$. For example, for dark matter mass $m_{\rm s}=10$ MeV and Hubble scale during cosmic inflation $H_*=10^{12}$ GeV, we find $10^{-4}\lesssim \lambda_{\rm s}\lesssim 0.2$.
Analysis method for detecting topological defect dark matter with a global magnetometer network
2019
Abstract The Global Network of Optical Magnetometers for Exotic physics searches (GNOME) is a network of time-synchronized, geographically separated, optically pumped atomic magnetometers that is being used to search for correlated transient signals heralding exotic physics. GNOME is sensitive to exotic couplings of atomic spins to certain classes of dark matter candidates, such as axions. This work presents a data analysis procedure to search for axion dark matter in the form of topological defects: specifically, walls separating domains of discrete degenerate vacua in the axion field. An axion domain wall crossing the Earth creates a distinctive signal pattern in the network that can be d…
Constraints on electromagnetic form factors of sub-GeV dark matter from the cosmic microwave background anisotropy
2021
We consider dark matter which have non-zero electromagnetic form factors like electric/magnetic dipole moments and anapole moment for fermionic dark matter and Rayleigh form factor for scalar dark matter. We consider dark matter mass $m_\chi > \cal{ O}({\rm MeV})$ and put constraints on their mass and electromagnetic couplings from CMB and LSS observations. Fermionic dark matter with non-zero electromagnetic form factors can annihilate to $e^+ e^-$ and scalar dark matter can annihilate to $2\gamma$ at the time of recombination and distort the CMB. We analyze dark matter with multipole moments with Planck and BAO observations. We find upper bounds on anapole moment $g_{A}<7.163\times 10^{3} …
Spontaneous Breaking of Lepton Number and Cosmological Domain Wall Problem
2019
We show that if global lepton number symmetry is spontaneously broken in a post inflation epoch, then it can lead to the formation of cosmological domain walls. This happens in the well-known "Majoron paradigm" for neutrino mass generation. We propose some realistic examples which allow spontaneous lepton number breaking to be safe from such domain walls.
Is it mixed dark matter or neutrino masses?
2018
In this paper, we explore a scenario where the dark matter is a mixture of interacting and non interacting species. Assuming dark matter-photon interactions for the interacting species, we find that the suppression of the matter power spectrum in this scenario can mimic that expected in the case of massive neutrinos. Our numerical studies include present limits from Planck Cosmic Microwave Background data, which render the strength of the dark matter photon interaction unconstrained when the fraction of interacting dark matter is small. Despite the large entangling between mixed dark matter and neutrino masses, we show that future measurements from the Dark Energy Instrument (DESI) could he…
Resurrection of large lepton number asymmetries from neutrino flavor oscillations
2016
We numerically solve the evolution equations of neutrino three-flavor density matrices, and show that, even if neutrino oscillations mix neutrino flavors, large lepton number asymmetries are still allowed in certain limits by Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN).
Emergent Dark Energy, neutrinos and cosmological tensions
2020
The Phenomenologically Emergent Dark Energy model, a dark energy model with the same number of free parameters as the flat $\Lambda$CDM, has been proposed as a working example of a minimal model which can avoid the current cosmological tensions. A straightforward question is whether or not the inclusion of massive neutrinos and extra relativistic species may spoil such an appealing phenomenological alternative. We present the bounds on $M_{\nu}$ and $N_{\rm eff}$ and comment on the long standing $H_0$ and $\sigma_8$ tensions within this cosmological framework with a wealth of cosmological observations. Interestingly, we find, at $95\%$ confidence level, and with the most complete set of cos…
Search for Quantum Black Hole Production in High-Invariant-MassLepton+JetFinal States UsingppCollisions ats=8 TeVand the ATLAS Detector
2014
This Letter presents a search for quantum black-hole production using 20.3 fb(-1) of data collected with the ATLAS detector in pp collisions at the LHC at root s = 8 TeV. The quantum black holes are assumed to decay into a final state characterized by a lepton (electron or muon) and a jet. In either channel, no event with a lepton-jet invariant mass of 3.5 TeV or more is observed, consistent with the expected background. Limits are set on the product of cross sections and branching fractions for the lepton + jet final states of quantum black holes produced in a search region for invariant masses above 1 TeV. The combined 95% confidence level upper limit on this product for quantum black hol…
Strong phase transition, dark matter and vacuum stability from simple hidden sectors
2014
Motivated by the possibility to explain dark matter abundance and strong electroweak phase transition, we consider simple extensions of the Standard Model containing singlet fields coupled with the Standard Model via a scalar portal. Concretely, we consider a basic portal model consisting of a singlet scalar with $Z_2$ symmetry and a model containing a singlet fermion connected with the Standard Model fields via a singlet scalar portal. We perform a Monte Carlo analysis of the parameter space of each model, and we find that in both cases the dark matter abundance can be produced either via freeze-out or freeze-in mechanisms, but only in the latter model one can obtain also a strong electrow…
Dark Radiation and Inflationary Freedom after Planck 2015
2016
The simplest inflationary models predict a primordial power spectrum (PPS) of the curvature fluctuations that can be described by a power-law function that is nearly scale-invariant. It has been shown, however, that the low-multipole spectrum of the CMB anisotropies may hint the presence of some features in the shape of the scalar PPS, which could deviate from its canonical power-law form. We study the possible degeneracies of this non-standard PPS with the neutrino anisotropies, the neutrino masses, the effective number of relativistic species and a sterile neutrino or a thermal axion mass. The limits on these additional parameters are less constraining in a model with a non-standard PPS w…