Search results for "Universe"
showing 10 items of 2171 documents
Dark Radiation in extended cosmological scenarios
2012
Recent cosmological data have provided evidence for a "dark" relativistic background at high statistical significance. Parameterized in terms of the number of relativistic degrees of freedom Neff, however, the current data seems to indicate a higher value than the one expected in the standard scenario based on three active neutrinos. This dark radiation component can be characterized not only by its abundance but also by its clustering properties, as its effective sound speed and its viscosity parameter. It is therefore crucial to study the correlations among the dark radiation properties and key cosmological parameters, as the dark energy equation of state or the running of the scalar spec…
Weakly interacting dark matter particle of a minimal technicolor theory
2007
We consider the possibility that a massive fourth family neutrino, predicted by a recently proposed minimal technicolor theory, could be the source of the dark matter in the Universe. The model has two techniflavors in the adjoint representation of a SU(2) techicolor gauge group and its consistency requires the existence of a fourth family of leptons. By a suitable hypercharge assignment the techniquarks together with the new leptons look like a conventional fourth standard model family. We show that the new (Majorana) neutrino N can be the dark matter particle if m{sub N}{approx}100-500 GeV and the expansion rate of the Universe at early times is dominated by an energy component scaling as…
Minimalistic Neutrino Mass Model
2000
We consider the simplest model which solves the solar and atmospheric neutrino puzzles, in the sense that it contains the smallest amount of beyond the Standard Model ingredients. The solar neutrino data is accounted for by Planck-mass effects while the atmospheric neutrino anomaly is due to the existence of a single right-handed neutrino at an intermediate mass scale between 10^9 GeV and 10^14 GeV. Even though the neutrino mixing angles are not exactly predicted, they can be naturally large, which agrees well with the current experimental situation. Furthermore, the amount of lepton asymmetry produced in the early universe by the decay of the right-handed neutrino is very predictive and ma…
N_eff in low-scale seesaw models versus the lightest neutrino mass
2014
We evaluate the contribution to $N_{\rm eff}$ of the extra sterile states in low-scale Type I seesaw models (with three extra sterile states). We explore the full parameter space and find that at least two of the heavy states always reach thermalisation in the Early Universe, while the third one might not thermalise provided the lightest neutrino mass is below ${\mathcal O}(10^{-3}$eV). Constraints from cosmology therefore severely restrict the spectra of heavy states in the range 1eV- 100 MeV. The implications for neutrinoless double beta decay are also discussed.
EUSO-A Space mission searching for Extreme Energy Cosmic Rays and neutrinos
2004
The “Extreme Universe Space Observatory – EUSO” is an international, multi-agency mission, led by ESA, aimed at measuring from a Low Altitude Earth Orbiting Space Platform the flux and investigating the nature and origin of the charged and neutral particles of the Extreme Energy Cosmic Ray (EECR) with energy above the conventional value (E = 5×10 19 eV) of the Greisen Zatsepin and Kuzmin (GZK) effect E GZK = 5×10 19 eV). EUSO will pioneer the observation from Space of EECR-induced Extensive Air Showers (EASs), making measurements of the primary energy, arrival direction and possibly composition of the incoming flux by using a sensitive area and target volume far greater than achievable from…
Neutrino conversions in hot plasma
1995
We discuss the excitation of sterile neutrinos in the early universe using general quantum kinetic equations, which also incorporate a possible primordial magnetic field $B$. We find a new contribution to the excitation propability, which has its origin in the shrinkage of the spin vector. In the absence of $B$ nucleosynthesis implies the constraint $\mid \Delta m^2\mid\sin^22\theta_0\lsim 1.6\times 10^{-6}~{\rm eV}^2$ which is more restrictive than previous estimates. We also present examples of possible stringent limits for $B\ne 0$.
Sterile neutrino models and nonminimal cosmologies
2012
Cosmological measurements are affected by the energy density of massive neutrinos. We extend here a recent analysis of current cosmological data to nonminimal cosmologies. Several possible scenarios are examined: a constant $w\ensuremath{\ne}\ensuremath{-}1$ dark energy equation of state, a nonflat universe, a time-varying dark energy component and coupled dark matter-dark energy universes or modified gravity scenarios. When considering cosmological data only, ($3+2$) massive neutrino models with $\ensuremath{\sim}0.5\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{eV}$ sterile species are allowed at 95% confidence level. This scenario has been shown to reconcile reactor, LSND and MiniBooNE positive signals with nu…
Nucleosynthesis constraints on active-sterile neutrino conversions in the early universe with random magnetic field
1994
We consider active-sterile neutrino conversions in the early universe hot plasma in the presence of a random magnetic field generated at the electroweak phase transition. Within a random field domain the magnetization asymmetry of the lepton antilepton plasma produced by a uniform constant magnetic field is huge in contrast to their small density asymmetry, leading to a drastic change in the active-sterile conversion rates. Assuming that the random field provides the seed for the galactic field one can estimate the restrictions from primordial nucleosynthesis. Requiring that the extra sterile \neu does not enter in equilibrium with the active ones before nucleosynthesis we find limits of th…
Cosmic Microwave Background anisotropies from second order gravitational perturbations
1997
This paper presents a complete analysis of the effects of second order gravitational perturbations on Cosmic Microwave Background anisotropies, taking explicitly into account scalar, vector and tensor modes. We also consider the second order perturbations of the metric itself obtaining them, for a universe dominated by a collision-less fluid, in the Poisson gauge, by transforming the known results in the synchronous gauge. We discuss the resulting second order anisotropies in the Poisson gauge, and analyse the possible relevance of the different terms. We expect that, in the simplest scenarios for structure formation, the main effect comes from the gravitational lensing by scalar perturbati…
Fracture processes studied in CRESST
2005
In the early stages of running of the CRESST dark matter search with sapphire crystals as detectors, an unexpectedly high rate of signal pulses appeared. Their origin was finally traced to fracture events in the sapphire due to the very tight clamping of the detectors. During extensive runs the energy and time of each event was recorded, providing large data sets for such phenomena. We believe this is the first time that the energy release in fracture has been accurately measured on a microscopic event-by-event basis. The energy distributions appear to follow a power law, dN/dE proportional to E-beta, similar to the Gutenberg-Richter power law for earthquake magnitudes, and after appropriat…