Cosmological particle production and pairwise hotspots on the CMB

Heavy particles with masses much bigger than the inflationary Hubble scale H*, can get non-adiabatically pair produced during inflation through their couplings to the inflaton. If such couplings give rise to time-dependent masses for the heavy particles, then following their production, the heavy particles modify the curvature perturbation around their locations in a time-dependent and scale non-invariant manner. This results into a non-trivial spatial profile of the curvature perturbation that is preserved on superhorizon scales and eventually generates localized hot or cold spots on the CMB. We explore this phenomenon by studying the inflationary production of heavy scalars and derive the final temperature profile of the spots on the CMB by taking into account the subhorizon evolution, focusing in particular on the parameter space where pairwise hot spots (PHS) arise. When the heavy scalar has an $$ \mathcal{O} $$ O (1) coupling to the inflaton, we show that for an idealized situation where the dominant background to the PHS signal comes from the standard CMB fluctuations themselves, a simple position space search based on applying a temperature cut, can be sensitive to heavy particle masses M0/H* ∼ $$ \mathcal{O} $$ O (100). The corresponding PHS signal also modifies the CMB power spectra and bispectra, although the corrections are below (outside) the sensitivity of current measurements (searches).

Cosmological Model with Interconnection between Dark Energy and Matter

It is accepted in the present cosmology model that the scalar field, which is responsible for the inflation stage in the early universe, transforms completely into matter, and the accelerated universe expansion is presently governed by dark energy (DE), whose origin is not connected with the inflationary scalar field. We suppose here that dark matter (DM) has a common origin with a small variable component of dark energy (DEV). We suggest that DE may presently have two components, one of which is the Einstein constant Λ, and another, smaller component DEV (ΛV) comes from the remnants of the scalar field responsible for inflation, which gave birth to the origin of presently existing matter. In this note we consider only the stages of the universe expansion after recombination, z≃1100, when DM was the most abundant component of the matter, therefore we suggest for simplicity that a connection exists between DM and DEV so that the ratio of their densities remains constant over all the stages after recombination, ρDM=αρDEV, with a constant α. One of the problems revealed recently in cosmology is a so-called Hubble tension (HT), which is the difference between values of the present Hubble constant, measured by observation of the universe at redshift z≲1, and by observations of a distant universe with CMB fluctuations originated at z∼1100. In this paper we suggest that this discrepancy may be explained by deviation of the cosmological expansion from a standard Lambda-CDM model of a flat universe, due to the action of an additional variable component DEV. Taking into account the influence of DEV on the universe’s expansion, we find the value of α that could remove the HT problem. In order to maintain the almost constant DEV/DM energy density ratio during the time interval at z<1100, we suggest the existence of a wide mass DM particle distribution.

Squeezing of Primordial Gravitational Waves as Quantum Discord

We investigate the squeezing of primordial gravitational waves (PGWs) in terms of quantum discord. We construct a classical state of PGWs without quantum discord and compare it with the Bunch–Davies vacuum. Then it is shown that the oscillatory behavior of the angular-power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) fluctuations induced by PGWs can be the signature of the quantum discord of PGWs. In addition, we discuss the effect of quantum decoherence on the entanglement and the quantum discord of PGWs for super-horizon modes. For the state of PGWs with decoherence effect, we examine the decoherence condition and the correlation condition introduced by C. Kiefer et al. (Class. Quantum Grav. 24 (2007) 1699). We show that the decoherence condition is not sufficient for the separability of PGWs and the correlation condition implies that the PGWs in the matter-dominated era have quantum discord.

Dark matter in logarithmic F(R) gravity

The logarithmic [Formula: see text]-corrected [Formula: see text] gravity is investigated as a prototype model of modified gravity theories with quantum corrections. By using the auxiliary field method, the model is described by the general relativity with a scalaron field. The scalaron field can be identified as an inflaton at the primordial inflation era. It is also one of the dark matter candidates in the dark energy (DE) era. It is found that a wide range of the parameters is consistent with the current observations of CMB fluctuations, DE and dark matter.

Isotropic non-Gaussian gNL-like toy models that reproduce cosmic microwave background anomalies

Context. Based on recent observations of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), claims of statistical anomalies in the properties of the CMB fluctuations have been made. Although the statistical significance of the anomalies remains only at the ∼2−3σ significance level, the fact that there are many different anomalies, several of which support a possible deviation from statistical isotropy, has motivated a search for models that provide a common mechanism to generate them. Aims. The goal of this paper is to investigate whether these anomalies could originate from non-Gaussian cosmological models, and to determine what properties these models should have. Methods. We present a simple isotropic, non-Gaussian class of toy models that can reproduce six of the most extensively studied anomalies. We compare the presence of anomalies found in simulated maps generated from the toy models and from a standard model with Gaussian fluctuations. Results. We show that the following anomalies, as found in the Planck data, commonly occur in the toy model maps: (1) large-scale hemispherical asymmetry (large-scale dipolar modulation), (2) small-scale hemispherical asymmetry (alignment of the spatial distribution of CMB power over all scales ℓ = [2, 1500]), (3) a strongly non-Gaussian hot or cold spot, (4) a low power spectrum amplitude for ℓ < 30, including specifically (5) a low quadrupole and an unusual alignment between the quadrupole and the octopole, and (6) parity asymmetry of the lowest multipoles. We note that this class of toy model resembles models of primordial non-Gaussianity characterised by strongly scale-dependent gNL-like trispectra.

The impact of superstructures in the Cosmic Microwave Background

In 2008, Granett et al. claimed a direct detection of the integrated Sachs-Wolfe (iSW) effect, through the stacking of CMB patches at the positions of identified superstructures. Additionally, the high amplitude of their measured signal was reported to be at odds with predictions from the standard model of cosmology. However, a closer inspection of these results prompts multiple questions, more specifically about the amplitude and significance of the expected signal. We propose here an original theoretical prediction of the iSW effect produced by such superstructures. We use simulations based on GR and the LTB metric to reproduce cosmic structures and predict their exact theoretical iSW effect on the CMB. The amplitudes predicted with this method are consistent with the signal measured when properly accounting the contribution of the non-negligible (and fortuitous) primordial CMB fluctuations to the total signal. It also highlights the tricky nature of stacking measurements and their interpretation.