Table of contents

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The effects of heavy fields modulate the scalar power spectrum during inflation. We analytically calculate the modulations of the scalar power spectrum from a heavy field with a separable monomial potential, i.e. V(ϕ)∼ ϕⁿ. In general the modulation is characterized by a power-law oscillation which is reduced to the logarithmic oscillation in the case of n=2.

An interesting test on the nature of the Universe is to measure the global spatial curvature of the metric in a model independent way, at a level of |Ω_k|<10⁻⁴, or, if possible, at the cosmic variance level of the amplitude of the CMB fluctuations |Ω_k|≈10⁻⁵. A limit of |Ω_k|<10⁻⁴ would yield stringent tests on several models of inflation. Further, improving the constraint by an order of magnitude would help in reducing "model confusion" in standard parameter estimation. Moreover, if the curvature is measured to be at the value of the amplitude of the CMB fluctuations, it would offer a powerful test on the inflationary paradigm and would indicate that our Universe must be significantly larger than the current horizon. On the contrary, in the context of standard inflation, measuring a value above CMB fluctuations will lead us to conclude that the Universe is not much larger than the current observed horizon; this can also be interpreted as the presence of large fluctuations outside the horizon. However, it has proven difficult, so far, to find observables that can achieve such level of accuracy, and, most of all, be model-independent. Here we propose a method that can in principle achieve that; this is done by making minimal assumptions and using distance probes that are cosmology-independent: gravitational waves, redshift drift and cosmic chronometers. We discuss what kind of observations are needed in principle to achieve the desired accuracy.

We review a recent formalism which derives the functional forms of the primordial—tensor and scalar—power spectra of scalar potential inflationary models. The formalism incorporates the case of geometries with non-constant first slow-roll parameter. Analytic expressions for the power spectra are given that explicitly display the dependence on the geometric properties of the background. Moreover, we present the full algorithm for using our formalism, to reconstruct the model from the observed power spectra. Our techniques are applied to models possessing "features" in their potential with excellent agreement.

Cosmic-ray observations provide a powerful probe of dark matter annihilation in the Galaxy. In this paper we derive constraints on heavy dark matter from the recent precise AMS-02 antiproton data. We consider all possible annihilation channels into pairs of standard model particles. Furthermore, we interpret our results in the context of minimal dark matter, including higgsino, wino and quintuplet dark matter. We compare the cosmic-ray antiproton limits to limits from γ-ray observations of dwarf spheroidal galaxies and to limits from γ-ray and γ-line observations towards the Galactic center. While the latter limits are highly dependent on the dark matter density distribution and only exclude a thermal wino for cuspy profiles, the cosmic-ray limits are more robust, strongly disfavoring the thermal wino dark matter scenario even for a conservative estimate of systematic uncertainties.

We develop an approach to compute observables beyond the linear regime of dark matter perturbations for general dark energy and modified gravity models. We do so by combining the Effective Field Theory of Dark Energy and Effective Field Theory of Large-Scale Structure approaches. In particular, we parametrize the linear and nonlinear effects of dark energy on dark matter clustering in terms of the Lagrangian terms introduced in a companion paper [1], focusing on Horndeski theories and assuming the quasi-static approximation. The Euler equation for dark matter is sourced, via the Newtonian potential, by new nonlinear vertices due to modified gravity and, as in the pure dark matter case, by the effects of short-scale physics in the form of the divergence of an effective stress tensor. The effective fluid introduces a counterterm in the solution to the matter continuity and Euler equations, which allows a controlled expansion of clustering statistics on mildly nonlinear scales. We use this setup to compute the one-loop dark-matter power spectrum.

We present a thorough discussion of light dark matter produced via freeze-in in two-body decays A→ B DM . If A and B are quasi-degenerate, the dark matter particle has a cold spectrum even for keV masses. We show this explicitly by calculating the transfer function that encodes the impact on structure formation. As examples for this setup we study extended seesaw mechanisms with a spontaneously broken global U(1) symmetry, such as the inverse seesaw. The keV-scale pseudo-Goldstone dark matter particle is then naturally produced cold by the decays of the quasi-degenerate right-handed neutrinos.

The advent of gravitational wave astronomy has rekindled interest in primordial black holes (PBH) as a dark matter candidate. As there are many different observational probes of the PBH density across different masses, constraints on PBH models are dependent on the functional form of the PBH mass function. This complicates general statements about the mass functions allowed by current data, and, in particular, about the maximum total density of PBH. Numerical studies suggest that some forms of extended mass functions face tighter constraints than monochromatic mass functions, but they do not preclude the existence of a functional form for which constraints are relaxed. We use analytical arguments to show that the mass function which maximizes the fraction of the matter density in PBH subject to all constraints is a finite linear combination of monochromatic mass functions. We explicitly compute the maximum fraction of dark matter in PBH for different combinations of current constraints, allowing for total freedom of the mass function. Our framework elucidates the dependence of the maximum PBH density on the form of observational constraints, and we discuss the implications of current and future constraints for the viability of the PBH dark matter paradigm.

A proposal for the neutrino mass, based on neutrino-scalar field interaction, is introduced. The scalar field is also non-minimally coupled to the Ricci scalar, and hence relates the neutrino mass to the matter density. In a dense region, the scalar field obeys the Z₂ symmetry, and the neutrino is massless. In a dilute region, the Z₂ symmetry breaks and neutrino acquires mass from the non-vanishing expectation value of the scalar field. We consider this scenario in the framework of a spherical dense object whose outside is a dilute region. In this background, we study the neutrino flavors oscillation, along with the consequences of the theory on oscillation length and MSW effect. This preliminary model may shed some lights on the existing anomalies within the neutrino data, concerning the different oscillating behavior of the neutrinos in regions with different densities.

We present a purely gravitational infra-red-calculable production mechanism for dark matter (DM) . The source of both the DM relic abundance and the hot Standard Model (SM) plasma is a primordial density of micro black holes (BHs), which evaporate via Hawking emission into both the dark and SM sectors. The mechanism has four qualitatively different regimes depending upon whether the BH evaporation is 'fast' or 'slow' relative to the initial Hubble rate, and whether the mass of the DM particle is 'light' or 'heavy' compared to the initial BH temperature. For each of these regimes we calculate the DM yield, Y, as a function of the initial state and DM mass and spin. In the 'slow' regime Y depends on only the initial BH mass over a wide range of initial conditions, including scenarios where the BHs are a small fraction of the initial energy density. The DM is produced with a highly non-thermal energy spectrum, leading in the 'light' DM mass regime (~260 eV and above depending on DM spin) to a strong constraint from free-streaming, but also possible observational signatures in structure formation in the spin 3/2 and 2 cases. The 'heavy' regime (~1.2 × 10⁸ GeV to M_Pl depending on spin) is free of these constraints and provides new possibilities for DM detection. In all cases there is a dark radiation component predicted.

We propose a new filter, a smooth-k space filter, to use in the Press-Schechter approach to model the dark matter halo mass function which overcomes shortcomings of other filters. We test this against the mass function measured in N-body simulations. We find that the commonly used sharp-k filter fails to reproduce the behaviour of the halo mass function at low masses measured from simulations of models with a sharp truncation in the linear power spectrum. We show that the predictions with our new filter agree with the simulation results over a wider range of halo masses for both damped and undamped power spectra than is the case with the sharp-k and real-space top-hat filters.

In the present paper we study models of neutron stars in a class of extended scalar-tensor Gauss-Bonnet (ESTGB) theories for which the scalar degree of freedom is exited only in the strong curvature regime. We show that in the framework of the ESTGB theories under consideration there exist new neutron star solutions which are formed via spontaneous scalarization of the general relativistic neutron stars. In contrast to the spontaneous scalarization in the standard scalar-tensor theories which is induced by the presence of matter, in our case the scalarization is induced by the spacetime curvature.

We compute the gravitational wave spectrum from a tachyonic preheating transition of a Standard Model-like SU(2)-Higgs system. Tachyonic preheating involves exponentially growing IR modes, at scales as large as the horizon. Such a transition at the electroweak scale could be detectable by LISA, if these non-perturbatively large modes translate into non-linear dynamics sourcing gravitational waves. Through large-scale numerical simulations, we find that the spectrum of gravitational waves does not exhibit such IR features. Instead, we find two peaks corresponding to the Higgs and gauge field mass, respectively. We find that the gravitational wave production is reduced when adding non-Abelian gauge fields to a scalar-only theory, but increases when adding Abelian gauge fields. In particular, gauge fields suppress the gravitational wave spectrum in the IR. A tachyonic transition in the early Universe will therefore not be detectable by LISA, even if it involves non-Abelian gauge fields.

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Future observations of cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarisation have the potential to answer some of the most fundamental questions of modern physics and cosmology, including: what physical process gave birth to the Universe we see today? What are the dark matter and dark energy that seem to constitute 95% of the energy density of the Universe? Do we need extensions to the standard model of particle physics and fundamental interactions? Is the ΛCDM cosmological scenario correct, or are we missing an essential piece of the puzzle? In this paper, we list the requirements for a future CMB polarisation survey addressing these scientific objectives, and discuss the design drivers of the COREmfive space mission proposed to ESA in answer to the "M5" call for a medium-sized mission. The rationale and options, and the methodologies used to assess the mission's performance, are of interest to other future CMB mission design studies. COREmfive has 19 frequency channels, distributed over a broad frequency range, spanning the 60–600 GHz interval, to control astrophysical foreground emission. The angular resolution ranges from 2^' to 18^', and the aggregate CMB sensitivity is about 2 μK⋅arcmin. The observations are made with a single integrated focal-plane instrument, consisting of an array of 2100 cryogenically-cooled, linearly-polarised detectors at the focus of a 1.2-m aperture cross-Dragone telescope. The mission is designed to minimise all sources of systematic effects, which must be controlled so that no more than 10⁻⁴ of the intensity leaks into polarisation maps, and no more than about 1% of E-type polarisation leaks into B-type modes. COREmfive observes the sky from a large Lissajous orbit around the Sun-Earth L2 point on an orbit that offers stable observing conditions and avoids contamination from sidelobe pick-up of stray radiation originating from the Sun, Earth, and Moon. The entire sky is observed repeatedly during four years of continuous scanning, with a combination of three rotations of the spacecraft over different timescales. With about 50% of the sky covered every few days, this scan strategy provides the mitigation of systematic effects and the internal redundancy that are needed to convincingly extract the primordial B-mode signal on large angular scales, and check with adequate sensitivity the consistency of the observations in several independent data subsets. COREmfive is designed as a "near-ultimate" CMB polarisation mission which, for optimal complementarity with ground-based observations, will perform the observations that are known to be essential to CMB polarisation science and cannot be obtained by any other means than a dedicated space mission. It will provide well-characterised, highly-redundant multi-frequency observations of polarisation at all the scales where foreground emission and cosmic variance dominate the final uncertainty for obtaining precision CMB science, as well as 2^' angular resolution maps of high-frequency foreground emission in the 300–600 GHz frequency range, essential for complementarity with future ground-based observations with large telescopes that can observe the CMB with the same beamsize.

We describe a space-borne, multi-band, multi-beam polarimeter aiming at a precise and accurate measurement of the polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background. The instrument is optimized to be compatible with the strict budget requirements of a medium-size space mission within the Cosmic Vision Programme of the European Space Agency. The instrument has no moving parts, and uses arrays of diffraction-limited Kinetic Inductance Detectors to cover the frequency range from 60 GHz to 600 GHz in 19 wide bands, in the focal plane of a 1.2 m aperture telescope cooled at 40 K, allowing for an accurate extraction of the CMB signal from polarized foreground emission. The projected CMB polarization survey sensitivity of this instrument, after foregrounds removal, is 1.7 μK⋅arcmin. The design is robust enough to allow, if needed, a downscoped version of the instrument covering the 100 GHz to 600 GHz range with a 0.8 m aperture telescope cooled at 85 K, with a projected CMB polarization survey sensitivity of 3.2 μK⋅arcmin.

We forecast the scientific capabilities to improve our understanding of cosmic inflation of CORE, a proposed CMB space satellite submitted in response to the ESA fifth call for a medium-size mission opportunity. The CORE satellite will map the CMB anisotropies in temperature and polarization in 19 frequency channels spanning the range 60–600 GHz. CORE will have an aggregate noise sensitivity of 1.7 μK⋅ arcmin and an angular resolution of 5' at 200 GHz. We explore the impact of telescope size and noise sensitivity on the inflation science return by making forecasts for several instrumental configurations. This study assumes that the lower and higher frequency channels suffice to remove foreground contaminations and complements other related studies of component separation and systematic effects, which will be reported in other papers of the series "Exploring Cosmic Origins with CORE." We forecast the capability to determine key inflationary parameters, to lower the detection limit for the tensor-to-scalar ratio down to the 10⁻³ level, to chart the landscape of single field slow-roll inflationary models, to constrain the epoch of reheating, thus connecting inflation to the standard radiation-matter dominated Big Bang era, to reconstruct the primordial power spectrum, to constrain the contribution from isocurvature perturbations to the 10⁻³ level, to improve constraints on the cosmic string tension to a level below the presumptive GUT scale, and to improve the current measurements of primordial non-Gaussianities down to the f_NL^local < 1 level. For all the models explored, CORE alone will improve significantly on the present constraints on the physics of inflation. Its capabilities will be further enhanced by combining with complementary future cosmological observations.

We forecast the main cosmological parameter constraints achievable with the CORE space mission which is dedicated to mapping the polarisation of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). CORE was recently submitted in response to ESA's fifth call for medium-sized mission proposals (M5). Here we report the results from our pre-submission study of the impact of various instrumental options, in particular the telescope size and sensitivity level, and review the great, transformative potential of the mission as proposed. Specifically, we assess the impact on a broad range of fundamental parameters of our Universe as a function of the expected CMB characteristics, with other papers in the series focusing on controlling astrophysical and instrumental residual systematics. In this paper, we assume that only a few central CORE frequency channels are usable for our purpose, all others being devoted to the cleaning of astrophysical contaminants. On the theoretical side, we assume ΛCDM as our general framework and quantify the improvement provided by CORE over the current constraints from the Planck 2015 release. We also study the joint sensitivity of CORE and of future Baryon Acoustic Oscillation and Large Scale Structure experiments like DESI and Euclid. Specific constraints on the physics of inflation are presented in another paper of the series. In addition to the six parameters of the base ΛCDM, which describe the matter content of a spatially flat universe with adiabatic and scalar primordial fluctuations from inflation, we derive the precision achievable on parameters like those describing curvature, neutrino physics, extra light relics, primordial helium abundance, dark matter annihilation, recombination physics, variation of fundamental constants, dark energy, modified gravity, reionization and cosmic birefringence. In addition to assessing the improvement on the precision of individual parameters, we also forecast the post-CORE overall reduction of the allowed parameter space with figures of merit for various models increasing by as much as ∼ 10⁷ as compared to Planck 2015, and 10⁵ with respect to Planck 2015 + future BAO measurements.

Lensing of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) is now a well-developed probe of the clustering of the large-scale mass distribution over a broad range of redshifts. By exploiting the non-Gaussian imprints of lensing in the polarization of the CMB, the CORE mission will allow production of a clean map of the lensing deflections over nearly the full-sky. The number of high-S/N modes in this map will exceed current CMB lensing maps by a factor of 40, and the measurement will be sample-variance limited on all scales where linear theory is valid. Here, we summarise this mission product and discuss the science that will follow from its power spectrum and the cross-correlation with other clustering data. For example, the summed mass of neutrinos will be determined to an accuracy of 17 meV combining CORE lensing and CMB two-point information with contemporaneous measurements of the baryon acoustic oscillation feature in the clustering of galaxies, three times smaller than the minimum total mass allowed by neutrino oscillation measurements. Lensing has applications across many other science goals of CORE, including the search for B-mode polarization from primordial gravitational waves. Here, lens-induced B-modes will dominate over instrument noise, limiting constraints on the power spectrum amplitude of primordial gravitational waves. With lensing reconstructed by CORE, one can "delens" the observed polarization internally, reducing the lensing B-mode power by 60 %. This can be improved to 70 % by combining lensing and measurements of the cosmic infrared background from CORE, leading to an improvement of a factor of 2.5 in the error on the amplitude of primordial gravitational waves compared to no delensing (in the null hypothesis of no primordial B-modes). Lensing measurements from CORE will allow calibration of the halo masses of the tens of thousands of galaxy clusters that it will find, with constraints dominated by the clean polarization-based estimators. The 19 frequency channels proposed for CORE will allow accurate removal of Galactic emission from CMB maps. We present initial findings that show that residual Galactic foreground contamination will not be a significant source of bias for lensing power spectrum measurements with CORE.

We examine the cosmological constraints that can be achieved with a galaxy cluster survey with the future CORE space mission. Using realistic simulations of the millimeter sky, produced with the latest version of the Planck Sky Model, we characterize the CORE cluster catalogues as a function of the main mission performance parameters. We pay particular attention to telescope size, key to improved angular resolution, and discuss the comparison and the complementarity of CORE with ambitious future ground-based CMB experiments that could be deployed in the next decade. A possible CORE mission concept with a 150 cm diameter primary mirror can detect of the order of 50,000 clusters through the thermal Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect (SZE). The total yield increases (decreases) by 25% when increasing (decreasing) the mirror diameter by 30 cm. The 150 cm telescope configuration will detect the most massive clusters (>10¹⁴ M_⊙) at redshift z>1.5 over the whole sky, although the exact number above this redshift is tied to the uncertain evolution of the cluster SZE flux-mass relation; assuming self-similar evolution, CORE will detect 0∼ 50 clusters at redshift z>1.5. This changes to 800 (200) when increasing (decreasing) the mirror size by 30 cm. CORE will be able to measure individual cluster halo masses through lensing of the cosmic microwave background anisotropies with a 1-σ sensitivity of 4×10¹⁴ M_⊙, for a 120 cm aperture telescope, and 10¹⁴ M_⊙ for a 180 cm one. From the ground, we estimate that, for example, a survey with about 150,000 detectors at the focus of 350 cm telescopes observing 65% of the sky would be shallower than CORE and detect about 11,000 clusters, while a survey with the same number of detectors observing 25% of sky with a 10 m telescope is expected to be deeper and to detect about 70,000 clusters. When combined with the latter, CORE would reach a limiting mass of M₅₀₀ ∼ 2−3 × 10¹³ M_⊙ and detect 220,000 clusters (5 sigma detection limit). Cosmological constraints from CORE cluster counts alone are competitive with other scheduled large scale structure surveys in the 2020's for measuring the dark energy equation-of-state parameters w₀ and w_a (σ_w0=0.28, σ_wa=0.31). In combination with primary CMB constraints, CORE cluster counts can further reduce these error bars on w₀ and w_a to 0.05 and 0.13 respectively, and constrain the sum of the neutrino masses, Σ m_ν, to 39 meV (1 sigma). The wide frequency coverage of CORE, 60–600 GHz, will enable measurement of the relativistic thermal SZE by stacking clusters. Contamination by dust emission from the clusters, however, makes constraining the temperature of the intracluster medium difficult. The kinetic SZE pairwise momentum will be extracted with 0S/N=7 in the foreground-cleaned CMB map. Measurements of T_CMB(z) using CORE clusters will establish competitive constraints on the evolution of the CMB temperature: (1+z)^1−β, with an uncertainty of σ_β ≲ 2.7× 10⁻³ at low redshift (z ≲ 1). The wide frequency coverage also enables clean extraction of a map of the diffuse SZE signal over the sky, substantially reducing contamination by foregrounds compared to the Planck SZE map extraction. Our analysis of the one-dimensional distribution of Compton-y values in the simulated map finds an order of magnitude improvement in constraints on σ₈ over the Planck result, demonstrating the potential of this cosmological probe with CORE.

We discuss the potential of a next generation space-borne Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) experiment for studies of extragalactic sources. Our analysis has particular bearing on the definition of the future space project, CORE, that has been submitted in response to ESA's call for a Medium-size mission opportunity as the successor of the Planck satellite. Even though the effective telescope size will be somewhat smaller than that of Planck, CORE will have a considerably better angular resolution at its highest frequencies, since, in contrast with Planck, it will be diffraction limited at all frequencies. The improved resolution implies a considerable decrease of the source confusion, i.e. substantially fainter detection limits. In particular, CORE will detect thousands of strongly lensed high-z galaxies distributed over the full sky. The extreme brightness of these galaxies will make it possible to study them, via follow-up observations, in extraordinary detail. Also, the CORE resolution matches the typical sizes of high-z galaxy proto-clusters much better than the Planck resolution, resulting in a much higher detection efficiency; these objects will be caught in an evolutionary phase beyond the reach of surveys in other wavebands. Furthermore, CORE will provide unique information on the evolution of the star formation in virialized groups and clusters of galaxies up to the highest possible redshifts. Finally, thanks to its very high sensitivity, CORE will detect the polarized emission of thousands of radio sources and, for the first time, of dusty galaxies, at mm and sub-mm wavelengths, respectively.

We discuss the effects on the cosmic microwave background (CMB), cosmic infrared background (CIB), and thermal Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect due to the peculiar motion of an observer with respect to the CMB rest frame, which induces boosting effects. After a brief review of the current observational and theoretical status, we investigate the scientific perspectives opened by future CMB space missions, focussing on the Cosmic Origins Explorer (CORE) proposal. The improvements in sensitivity offered by a mission like CORE, together with its high resolution over a wide frequency range, will provide a more accurate estimate of the CMB dipole. The extension of boosting effects to polarization and cross-correlations will enable a more robust determination of purely velocity-driven effects that are not degenerate with the intrinsic CMB dipole, allowing us to achieve an overall signal-to-noise ratio of 13; this improves on the Planck detection and essentially equals that of an ideal cosmic-variance-limited experiment up to a multipole ℓ≃2000. Precise inter-frequency calibration will offer the opportunity to constrain or even detect CMB spectral distortions, particularly from the cosmological reionization epoch, because of the frequency dependence of the dipole spectrum, without resorting to precise absolute calibration. The expected improvement with respect to COBE-FIRAS in the recovery of distortion parameters (which could in principle be a factor of several hundred for an ideal experiment with the CORE configuration) ranges from a factor of several up to about 50, depending on the quality of foreground removal and relative calibration. Even in the case of ≃1 % accuracy in both foreground removal and relative calibration at an angular scale of 1^o, we find that dipole analyses for a mission like CORE will be able to improve the recovery of the CIB spectrum amplitude by a factor ≃ 17 in comparison with current results based on COBE-FIRAS. In addition to the scientific potential of a mission like CORE for these analyses, synergies with other planned and ongoing projects are also discussed.

We present an analysis of the main systematic effects that could impact the measurement of CMB polarization with the proposed CORE space mission. We employ timeline-to-map simulations to verify that the CORE instrumental set-up and scanning strategy allow us to measure sky polarization to a level of accuracy adequate to the mission science goals. We also show how the CORE observations can be processed to mitigate the level of contamination by potentially worrying systematics, including intensity-to-polarization leakage due to bandpass mismatch, asymmetric main beams, pointing errors and correlated noise. We use analysis techniques that are well validated on data from current missions such as Planck to demonstrate how the residual contamination of the measurements by these effects can be brought to a level low enough not to hamper the scientific capability of the mission, nor significantly increase the overall error budget. We also present a prototype of the CORE photometric calibration pipeline, based on that used for Planck, and discuss its robustness to systematics, showing how CORE can achieve its calibration requirements. While a fine-grained assessment of the impact of systematics requires a level of knowledge of the system that can only be achieved in a future study phase, the analysis presented here strongly suggests that the main areas of concern for the CORE mission can be addressed using existing knowledge, techniques and algorithms.

We demonstrate that, for the baseline design of the CORE satellite mission, the polarized foregrounds can be controlled at the level required to allow the detection of the primordial cosmic microwave background (CMB) B-mode polarization with the desired accuracy at both reionization and recombination scales, for tensor-to-scalar ratio values of r≳ 5× 10⁻³. We consider detailed sky simulations based on state-of-the-art CMB observations that consist of CMB polarization with τ=0.055 and tensor-to-scalar values ranging from r=10⁻² to 10⁻³, Galactic synchrotron, and thermal dust polarization with variable spectral indices over the sky, polarized anomalous microwave emission, polarized infrared and radio sources, and gravitational lensing effects. Using both parametric and blind approaches, we perform full component separation and likelihood analysis of the simulations, allowing us to quantify both uncertainties and biases on the reconstructed primordial B-modes. Under the assumption of perfect control of lensing effects, CORE would measure an unbiased estimate of r=(5 ± 0.4)× 10⁻³ after foreground cleaning. In the presence of both gravitational lensing effects and astrophysical foregrounds, the significance of the detection is lowered, with CORE achieving a 4σ-measurement of r=5× 10⁻³ after foreground cleaning and 60% delensing. For lower tensor-to-scalar ratios (r=10⁻³) the overall uncertainty on r is dominated by foreground residuals, not by the 40% residual of lensing cosmic variance. Moreover, the residual contribution of unprocessed polarized point-sources can be the dominant foreground contamination to primordial B-modes at this r level, even on relatively large angular scales, ℓ ∼ 50. Finally, we report two sources of potential bias for the detection of the primordial B-modes by future CMB experiments: (i) the use of incorrect foreground models, e.g. a modelling error of Δβ_s = 0.02 on the synchrotron spectral indices may result in an excess in the recovered reionization peak corresponding to an effective Δ r > 10⁻³; (ii) the average of the foreground line-of-sight spectral indices by the combined effects of pixelization and beam convolution, which adds an effective curvature to the foreground spectral energy distribution and may cause spectral degeneracies with the CMB in the frequency range probed by the experiment.

A deep understanding of the epoch of reionization is still missing in our knowledge of the universe. While future probes will allow us to test the precise evolution of the free electron fraction from redshifts between z≃ 6 and 0z≃ 2, at present one could ask what kind of reionization processes are allowed by present cosmic microwave background temperature and polarization measurements. An early contribution to reionization could imply a departure from the standard picture where star formation determines the reionization onset. By considering a broad class of possible reionization parameterizations, we find that current data do not require an early reionization component in our universe and that only one marginal class of models, based on a particular realization of reionization, may point to that. In addition, the frequentist Akaike information criterion (AIC) provides strong evidence against alternative reionization histories, favoring the most simple reionization scenario, which describes reionization by means of only one (constant) reionization optical depth τ.

Modern neutrino facilities will be able to detect a large number of neutrinos from the next Galactic supernova. We investigate the viability of the triangulation method to locate a core-collapse supernova by employing the neutrino arrival time differences at various detectors. We perform detailed numerical fits in order to determine the uncertainties of these time differences for the cases when the core collapses into a neutron star or a black hole. We provide a global picture by combining all the relevant current and future neutrino detectors. Our findings indicate that in the scenario of a neutron star formation, supernova can be located with precision of 1.5 and 3.5 degrees in declination and right ascension, respectively. For the black hole scenario, sub-degree precision can be reached.

We present a semi-analytic model for the Lyman-α forest that is inspired by the Halo Model. This model is built on the absorption line decomposition of the forest. Flux correlations are decomposed into those within each absorption line (the 1-absorber term) and those between separate lines (the 2-absorber term), treating the lines as biased tracers of the underlying matter fluctuations. While the nonlinear exponential mapping between optical depth and flux requires an infinite series of moments to calculate any statistic, we show that this series can be re-summed (truncating at the desired order in the linear matter overdensity). We focus on the z=2–3 line-of-sight power spectrum. Our model finds that 1-absorber term dominates the power on all scales, with most of its contribution coming from H I columns of 10¹⁴–10¹⁵ cm⁻², while the smaller 2-absorber contribution comes from lower columns that trace overdensities of a few. The prominence of the 1-absorber correlations indicates that the line-of-sight power spectrum is shaped principally by the lines' number densities and their absorption profiles, with correlations between lines contributing to a lesser extent. We present intuitive formulae for the effective optical depth as well as the large-scale limits of 1-absorber and 2-absorber terms, which simplify to integrals over the H I column density distribution with different equivalent-width weightings. With minimalist models for the bias of absorption systems and their peculiar velocity broadening, our model predicts values for the density bias and velocity gradient bias that are consistent with those found in simulations.

We describe a two-field model that generalizes natural inflation, in which the inflaton is the pseudo-Goldstone boson of an approximate symmetry that is spontaneously broken, and the radial mode is dynamical. We analyze how the dynamics fundamentally depends on the mass of the radial mode and calculate/estimate the non-Gaussianities arising from such a scenario.

We study a particular version of the theory of cosmological α-attractors with α=1/3, in which both the dilaton (inflaton) field and the axion field are light during inflation. The kinetic terms in this theory originate from maximal =4 superconformal symmetry and from maximal =8 supergravity. We show that because of the underlying hyperbolic geometry of the moduli space in this theory, it exhibits double attractor behavior: their cosmological predictions are stable not only with respect to significant modifications of the dilaton potential, but also with respect to significant modifications of the axion potential: n_s≃1−2/N, r≃4/N². We also show that the universality of predictions extends to other values of α ≲ (1) with general two-field potentials that may or may not have an embedding in supergravity. Our results support the idea that inflation involving multiple, not stabilized, light fields on a hyperbolic manifold may be compatible with current observational constraints for a broad class of potentials.

We present the gauge-invariant formalism of cosmological weak lensing, accounting for all the relativistic effects due to the scalar, vector, and tensor perturbations at the linear order. While the light propagation is fully described by the geodesic equation, the relation of the photon wavevector to the physical quantities requires the specification of the frames, where they are defined. By constructing the local tetrad bases at the observer and the source positions, we clarify the relation of the weak lensing observables such as the convergence, the shear, and the rotation to the physical size and shape defined in the source rest-frame and the observed angle and redshift measured in the observer rest-frame. Compared to the standard lensing formalism, additional relativistic effects contribute to all the lensing observables. We explicitly verify the gauge-invariance of the lensing observables and compare our results to previous work. In particular, we demonstrate that even in the presence of the vector and tensor perturbations, the physical rotation of the lensing observables vanishes at the linear order, while the tetrad basis rotates along the light propagation compared to a FRW coordinate. Though the latter is often used as a probe of primordial gravitational waves, the rotation of the tetrad basis is indeed not a physical observable. We further clarify its relation to the E-B decomposition in weak lensing. Our formalism provides a transparent and comprehensive perspective of cosmological weak lensing.

We present a new method for calculating loops in cosmological perturbation theory. This method is based on approximating a ΛCDM-like cosmology as a finite sum of complex power-law universes. The decomposition is naturally achieved using an FFTLog algorithm. For power-law cosmologies, all loop integrals are formally equivalent to loop integrals of massless quantum field theory. These integrals have analytic solutions in terms of generalized hypergeometric functions. We provide explicit formulae for the one-loop and the two-loop power spectrum and the one-loop bispectrum. A chief advantage of our approach is that the difficult part of the calculation is cosmology independent, need be done only once, and can be recycled for any relevant predictions. Evaluation of standard loop diagrams then boils down to a simple matrix multiplication. We demonstrate the promise of this method for applications to higher multiplicity/loop correlation functions.

According to the Cosmological Principle, the matter distribution on very large scales should have a kinematic dipole that is aligned with that of the CMB. We determine the dipole anisotropy in the number counts of two all-sky surveys of radio galaxies. For the first time, this analysis is presented for the TGSS survey, allowing us to check consistency of the radio dipole at low and high frequencies by comparing the results with the well-known NVSS survey. We match the flux thresholds of the catalogues, with flux limits chosen to minimise systematics, and adopt a strict masking scheme. We find dipole directions that are in good agreement with each other and with the CMB dipole. In order to compare the amplitude of the dipoles with theoretical predictions, we produce sets of lognormal realisations. Our realisations include the theoretical kinematic dipole, galaxy clustering, Poisson noise, simulated redshift distributions which fit the NVSS and TGSS source counts, and errors in flux calibration. The measured dipole for NVSS is ∼2 times larger than predicted by the mock data. For TGSS, the dipole is almost ∼ 5 times larger than predicted, even after checking for completeness and taking account of errors in source fluxes and in flux calibration. Further work is required to understand the nature of the systematics that are the likely cause of the anomalously large TGSS dipole amplitude.

We investigate the capabilities of perturbation theory in capturing non-linear effects of dark energy. We test constant and evolving w models, as well as models involving momentum exchange between dark energy and dark matter. Specifically, we compare perturbative predictions at 1-loop level against N-body results for four non-standard equations of state as well as varying degrees of momentum exchange between dark energy and dark matter. The interaction is modelled phenomenologically using a time dependent drag term in the Euler equation. We make comparisons at the level of the matter power spectrum and the redshift space monopole and quadrupole. The multipoles are modelled using the Taruya, Nishimichi and Saito (TNS) redshift space spectrum. We find perturbation theory does very well in capturing non-linear effects coming from dark sector interaction. We isolate and quantify the 1-loop contribution coming from the interaction and from the non-standard equation of state. We find the interaction parameter ξ amplifies scale dependent signatures in the range of scales considered. Non-standard equations of state also give scale dependent signatures within this same regime. In redshift space the match with N-body is improved at smaller scales by the addition of the TNS free parameter σ_v. To quantify the importance of modelling the interaction, we create mock data sets for varying values of ξ using perturbation theory. This data is given errors typical of Stage IV surveys. We then perform a likelihood analysis using the first two multipoles on these sets and a ξ=0 modelling, ignoring the interaction. We find the fiducial growth parameter f is generally recovered even for very large values of ξ both at z=0.5 and z=1. The ξ=0 modelling is most biased in its estimation of f for the phantom w=−1.1 case.

We study the impact of neglecting lensing magnification in galaxy clustering analyses for future galaxy surveys, considering the ΛCDM model and two extensions: massive neutrinos and modifications of General Relativity. Our study focuses on the biases on the constraints and on the estimation of the cosmological parameters. We perform a comprehensive investigation of these two effects for the upcoming photometric and spectroscopic galaxy surveys Euclid and SKA for different redshift binning configurations. We also provide a fitting formula for the magnification bias of SKA. Our results show that the information present in the lensing contribution does improve the constraints on the modified gravity parameters whereas the lensing constraining power is negligible for the ΛCDM parameters. For photometric surveys the estimation is biased for all the parameters if lensing is not taken into account. This effect is particularly significant for the modified gravity parameters. Conversely for spectroscopic surveys the bias is below one sigma for all the parameters. Our findings show the importance of including lensing in galaxy clustering analyses for testing General Relativity and to constrain the parameters which describe its modifications.

Secondary CMB polarization is induced by the late-time scattering of CMB photons by free electrons on our past light cone. This polarized Sunyaev Zel'dovich (pSZ) effect is sensitive to the electrons' locally observed CMB quadrupole, which is sourced primarily by long wavelength inhomogeneities. By combining the remote quadrupoles measured by free electrons throughout the Universe after reionization, the pSZ effect allows us to obtain additional information about large scale modes beyond what can be learned from our own last scattering surface. Here we determine the power of pSZ tomography, in which the pSZ effect is cross-correlated with the density field binned at several redshifts, to provide information about the long wavelength Universe. The signal we explore here is a power asymmetry in the cross-correlation between E or B mode CMB polarization and the density field. We compare this to the cosmic variance limited noise: the random chance to get a power asymmetry in the absence of a large scale quadrupole field. By computing the necessary transfer functions and cross-correlations, we compute the signal-to-noise ratio attainable by idealized next generation CMB experiments and galaxy surveys. We find that a signal-to-noise ratio of ∼ 1−10 is in principle attainable over a significant range of power multipoles, with the strongest signal coming from the first multipoles in the lowest redshift bins. These results prompt further assessment of realistically measuring the pSZ signal and the potential impact for constraining cosmology on large scales.

The substructures of the Galactic dark matter halo such as dark matter subhalos and dwarf galaxies have very low velocity dispersions, which makes them useful in constraining the scenario of Sommerfeld-enhanced dark matter annihilation. We calculate the velocity distribution of dark matter particles in the dark matter halo substructures using the Eddington's formula with NFW density profile. We parameterize the effect of Sommerfeld enhancement of s-wave dark matter annihilation on the gamma-ray flux as the Sommerfeld-enhanced J-factors, and explicitly calculate their values for 15 known dwarf spheroidal galaxies. Using the results from the analysis of the unassociated point-sources in the Fermi-LAT 3FGL and Fermi-LAT gamma-ray data observation on the 15 dwarf galaxies, we derive upper limits on the dark matter annihilation cross sections with Sommerfeld enhancement. We find that in a wide region of parameter space, the constraints can be a few orders of magnitude more stringent than that in the case without the Sommerfeld enhancement. For dark matter annihilation dominantly into e⁺e⁻, μ⁺μ⁻, τ⁺τ⁻ and b, those constraints can exclude thermal relic dark matter for the dark matter mass below about 1 TeV.

We study the effect of decoherence upon the neutrino spectra produced in microquasar jets. In order to analyse the precession of the polarization vector of neutrinos we have calculated its time evolution by solving the corresponding equations of motion, and by assuming two different scenarios, namely: (i) the mixing between two active neutrinos, and (ii) the mixing between one active and one sterile neutrino. The results of the calculations corresponding to these scenarios show that the onset of decoherence does not depends on the activation of neutrino-neutrino interactions when realistic values of the coupling are used in the calculations. We discuss also the case of neutrinos produced in windy microquasars and compare the results which those obtained with more conventional models of microquasars.

Several next-generation experiments aim to make the first measurement of the neutrino flux from the Carbon-Nitrogen-Oxygen (CNO) solar fusion cycle. We calculate how much time these experiments will need to run for in order to measure this flux with enough precision to tell us the metal content of the Sun's core, and thereby help to solve the solar metallicity problem. For experiments looking at neutrino-electron scattering, we find that SNO+ will measure this CNO neutrino flux with enough precision after five years in its pure scintillator mode, provided its ²¹⁰Bi background is measured to 1% accuracy. By comparison, a 100 ton liquid argon experiment such as Argo will take ten years in Gran Sasso lab, or five years in SNOLAB or Jinping. Borexino could obtain this precision in ten years, but this projection is very sensitive to background assumptions. For experiments looking at neutrino-nucleus scattering, the best prospects are obtained for low-threshold solid state detectors (employing either germanium or silicon). These would require new technologies to lower the experimental threshold close to detection of single electron-hole pairs, and exposures beyond those projected for next-generation dark matter detectors.

The method pioneered by Ruffini and Bonazzola (RB) to describe boson stars involves an expansion of the boson field which is linear in creation and annihilation operators. In the nonrelativistic limit, the equation of motion of RB is equivalent to the nonlinear Schrödinger equation. Further, the RB expansion constitutes an exact solution to a non-interacting field theory, and has been used as a reasonable ansatz for an interacting one. In this work, we show how one can go beyond the RB ansatz towards an exact solution of the interacting operator Klein-Gordon equation, which can be solved iteratively to ever higher precision. Our Generalized Ruffini-Bonazzola approach takes into account contributions from nontrivial harmonic dependence of the wavefunction, using a sum of terms with energy k E₀, where k⩾1 and E₀ is the chemical potential of a single bound axion. The method critically depends on an expansion in a parameter Δ ≡ √1 − E₀²/m² < 1, where m is the mass of the boson. In the case of the axion potential, we calculate corrections which are relevant for axion stars in the transition or dense branches of solutions. We find with high precision the local minimum of the mass, M_min≈ 463 f²/m, at Δ≈0.27, where f is the axion decay constant. This point marks the crossover from the transition branch to the dense branch of solutions, and a corresponding crossover from structural instability to stability.

The simple m^2ϕ2 potential as an inflationary model is coming under increasing tension with limits on the tensor-to-scalar ratio r and measurements of the scalar spectral index n_s. Cubic Galileon interactions in the context of the Horndeski action can potentially reconcile the observables. However, we show that this cannot be achieved with only a constant Galileon mass scale because the interactions turn off too slowly, leading also to gradient instabilities after inflation ends. Allowing for a more rapid transition can reconcile the observables but moderately breaks the slow-roll approximation leading to a relatively large and negative running of the tilt α_s that can be of order n_s−1. We show that the observables on CMB and large scale structure scales can be predicted accurately using the optimized slow-roll approach instead of the traditional slow-roll expansion. Upper limits on |α_s| place a lower bound of r≳ 0.005 and, conversely, a given r places a lower bound on |α_s|, both of which are potentially observable with next generation CMB and large scale structure surveys.

We investigate the precision with which the supernova neutrino spectra can be reconstructed in water Cherenkov detectors, in particular the large scale Hyper-Kamiokande and Super-Kamiokande. To this aim, we consider quasi-thermal neutrino spectra modified by the Mikheev-Smirnov-Wolfenstein effect for the case of normal ordering. We perform three 9 degrees of freedom likelihood analyses including first inverse-beta decay only, then the combination of inverse beta decay and elastic scattering on electrons and finally a third analysis that also includes neutral scattering neutrino-oxygen events. A tenth parameter is added in the analyses to account for the theoretical uncertainty on the neutral current neutrino-oxygen cross section. By assuming a 100% efficiency in Hyper-Kamiokande, we show that one can reconstruct the electron antineutrino average energy and pinching parameter with an accuracy of ∼2% and ∼7% percent respectively, while the antineutrino integrated luminosity can be pinned down at ∼3% percent level. As for the muon and tau neutrinos, the average energy and the integrated luminosity can be measured with ∼7% precision. These results represent a significant improvement with respect Super-Kamiokande, particularly for the pinching parameter defining the electron antineutrino spectra. As for electron neutrinos, the determination of the emission parameters requires the addition of supplementary detection channels.

In this work we present a generalized Brans-Dicke lagrangian including a non-minimally coupled Gauss-Bonnet term without imposing the vanishing torsion condition. In the resulting field equations, the torsion is closely related to the dynamics of the scalar field, i.e., if non-minimally coupled terms are present in the theory, then the torsion must be present. For the studied lagrangian we analyze the cosmological consequences of an effective torsional fluid and we show that this fluid can be responsible for the current acceleration of the universe. Finally, we perform a detailed dynamical system analysis to describe the qualitative features of the model, we find that accelerated stages are a generic feature of this scenario.

We consider classical dynamics of two real scalar fields within a model with the potential having a saddle point. The solitons of such model are field configurations that have the form of closed loops in the field space. We study the formation and evolution of these solitons, in particular, the conditions at which they could be formed even when the model potential has only one minimum. These non-trivial field configurations represent domain walls in the three-dimensional physical space. The set of these configurations can be split into disjoint equivalence classes. We provide a simple expression for the winding number of an arbitrary closed loop in the field space and discuss the transitions that change the winding number. We also show that non-trivial field configurations could be responsible for the energy density excess that could evade the CMB constraints but could be important at scales which are responsible for the formation of galaxies and the massive primordial black holes.

We consider a self-consistent and physical approach to interacting dark energy models described by a Lagrangian, and identify a new class of models with variable dark energy sound speed. We show that if the interaction between dark energy in the form of quintessence and cold dark matter is purely momentum exchange this generally leads to a dark energy sound speed that deviates from unity. Choosing a specific sub-case, we study its phenomenology by investigating the effects of the interaction on the cosmic microwave background and linear matter power spectrum. We also perform a global fitting of cosmological parameters using CMB data, and compare our findings to ΛCDM.

We investigate the possibility of using future photometric and radio surveys to constrain the power spectrum of primordial fluctuations that is predicted by inflationary models with a violation of the slow-roll phase. We forecast constraints with a Fisher analysis on the amplitude of the parametrized features on ultra-large scales, in order to assess whether these could be distinguishable over the cosmic variance. We find that the next generation of photometric and radio surveys has the potential to test these models at a sensitivity better than current CMB experiments and that the synergy between galaxy and CMB observations is able to constrain models with many extra parameters. In particular, an SKA continuum survey with a huge sky coverage and a flux threshold of a few μJy could confirm the presence of a new phase in the early Universe at more than 3σ.

We revisit the cosmological constraints on resonant and non-resonant conversion of photons to axions in the cosmological magnetic fields. We find that the constraints on photon-axion coupling and primordial magnetic fields are much weaker than previously claimed for low mass axion like particles with masses m_a ≲ 5× 10⁻¹³ eV. {In particular we find that the axion mass range 10⁻¹⁴ eV ≤ m_a ≤ 5× 10⁻¹³ eV is not excluded by {the} CMB data contrary to the previous claims.} We also examine the photon-axion conversion in the Galactic magnetic fields. Resonant conversion in the large scale coherent Galactic magnetic field results in 100% polarized anisotropic spectral distortions of the {CMB} for the mass range 10⁻¹³ eV ≲ m_a ≲ 10⁻¹¹ eV. The polarization pattern traces the transverse to line of sight component of the Galactic magnetic field while both the anisotropy in the Galactic magnetic field and electron distribution imprint a characteristic anisotropy pattern in the spectral distortion. Our results apply to scalar as well as pseudoscalar particles. {For conversion to scalar particles, the polarization is rotated by 90^o allowing us to distinguish them from the pseudoscalars.} For m_a ≲ 10⁻¹⁴ eV we have non-resonant conversion in the small scale turbulent magnetic field of the Galaxy resulting in anisotropic but unpolarized spectral distortion in the CMB. These unique signatures are potential discriminants against the isotropic and non-polarized signals such as primary CMB, and μ and y distortions with the anisotropic nature making it accessible to experiments with only relative calibration like Planck, LiteBIRD, and CoRE. We forecast for PIXIE as well as for these experiments using Fisher matrix formalism.

Reheating after inflation can proceed even if the inflaton couples to Standard Model (SM) particles only gravitationally. However, particle production during the transition between de-Sitter expansion and a decelerating Universe is rather inefficient and the necessity to recover the visible Universe leads to a non-standard cosmological evolution initially dominated by remnants of the inflaton field. We remain agnostic to the specific dynamics of the inflaton field and discuss a generic scenario in which its remnants behave as a perfect fluid with a general barotropic parameter w. Using CMB and BBN constraints we derive the allowed range of inflationary scales. We also show that this scenario results in a characteristic primordial Gravitational Wave (GW) spectrum which gives hope for observation in upcoming runs of LIGO as well as in other planned experiments.

Given the precision of current neutrino data, priors still impact noticeably the constraints on neutrino masses and their hierarchy. To avoid our understanding of neutrinos being driven by prior assumptions, we construct a prior that is mathematically minimally informative. Using the constructed uninformative prior, we find that the normal hierarchy is favoured but with inconclusive posterior odds of 5.1:1. Better data is hence needed before the neutrino masses and their hierarchy can be well constrained. We find that the next decade of cosmological data should provide conclusive evidence if the normal hierarchy with negligible minimum mass is correct, and if the uncertainty in the sum of neutrino masses drops below 0.025 eV. On the other hand, if neutrinos obey the inverted hierarchy, achieving strong evidence will be difficult with the same uncertainties. Our uninformative prior was constructed from principles of the Objective Bayesian approach. The prior is called a reference prior and is minimally informative in the specific sense that the information gain after collection of data is maximised. The prior is computed for the combination of neutrino oscillation data and cosmological data and still applies if the data improve.

Well-motivated extensions of the standard model predict ultra-light and fundamental pseudo-scalar particles (e.g., axions or axion-like particles: ALPs). Similarly to the Primakoff-effect for axions, ALPs can mix with photons and consequently be searched for in laboratory experiments and with astrophysical observations. Here, we search for energy-dependent modulations of high-energy gamma-ray spectra that are tell-tale signatures of photon-ALPs mixing. To this end, we analyze the data recorded with the Fermi-LAT from Galactic pulsars selected to have a line of sight crossing spiral arms at a large pitch angle. The large-scale Galactic magnetic field traces the shape of spiral arms, such that a sizable photon-ALP conversion probability is expected for the sources considered. For the nearby Vela pulsar, the energy spectrum is well described by a smooth model spectrum (a power-law with a sub-exponential cut-off) while for the six selected Galactic pulsars, a common fit of the ALPs parameters improves the goodness of fit in comparison to a smooth model spectrum with a significance of 4.6 σ. We determine the most-likely values for mass m_a and coupling g_aγγ to be m_a=(3.6_{−0.2 stat.}^+0.5 stat.± 0.2_syst. ) neV and g_aγγ=(2.3_−0.4stat.^+0.3 stat.± 0.4_syst.)× 10⁻¹⁰ GeV⁻¹. In the error budget, we consider instrumental effects, scaling of the adopted Galactic magnetic field model (± 20 %), and uncertainties on the distance of individual sources. The best-fit parameters are by a factor of ≈ 3 larger than the current best limit on solar ALPs generation obtained with the CAST helioscope, although known modifications of the photon-ALP mixing in the high density solar environment could provide a plausible explanation for the apparent tension between the helioscope bound and the indication for photon-ALPs mixing reported here.

The observed surface densities of dark matter halos are known to follow a simple scaling law, ranging from dwarf galaxies to galaxy clusters, with a weak dependence on their virial mass. Here we point out that this can not only be used to provide a method to determine the standard relation between halo mass and concentration, but also to use large samples of objects in order to place constraints on dark matter self-interactions that can be more robust than constraints derived from individual objects. We demonstrate our method by considering a sample of about 50 objects distributed across the whole halo mass range, and by modelling the effect of self-interactions in a way similar to what has been previously done in the literature. Using additional input from simulations then results in a constraint on the self-interaction cross section per unit dark matter mass of about σ/m_χ≲ 0.3 cm²/g. We expect that these constraints can be significantly improved in the future, and made more robust, by i) an improved modelling of the effect of self-interactions, both theoretical and by comparison with simulations, ii) taking into account a larger sample of objects and iii) by reducing the currently still relatively large uncertainties that we conservatively assign to the surface densities of individual objects. The latter can be achieved in particular by using kinematic observations to directly constrain the average halo mass inside a given radius, rather than fitting the data to a pre-selected profile and then reconstruct the mass. For a velocity-independent cross-section, our current result is formally already somewhat smaller than the range 0.5−5 cm²/g that has been invoked to explain potential inconsistencies between small-scale observations and expectations in the standard collisionless cold dark matter paradigm.

Recently, the LIGO-Virgo collaboration discovered gravitational waves and in their first publication on the subject the authors also presented a graviton mass constraint as m_g < 1.2 × 10⁻²² eV [1] (see also more details in a complimentary paper [2]). In our previous papers we considered constraints on Yukawa gravity parameters [3] and on graviton mass from analysis of the trajectory of S2 star near the Galactic Center [4]. In the paper we analyze a potential to reduce upper bounds for graviton mass with future observational data on trajectories of bright stars near the Galactic Center. Since gravitational potentials are different for these two cases, expressions for relativistic advance for general relativity and Yukawa potential are different functions on eccentricity and semimajor axis, it gives an opportunity to improve current estimates of graviton mass with future observational facilities. In our considerations of an improvement potential for a graviton mass estimate we adopt a conservative strategy and assume that trajectories of bright stars and their apocenter advance will be described with general relativity expressions and it gives opportunities to improve graviton mass constraints. In contrast with our previous studies, where we present current constraints on parameters of Yukawa gravity [5] and graviton mass [6] from observations of S2 star, in the paper we express expectations to improve current constraints for graviton mass, assuming the GR predictions about apocenter shifts will be confirmed with future observations. We concluded that if future observations of bright star orbits during around fifty years will confirm GR predictions about apocenter shifts of bright star orbits it give an opportunity to constrain a graviton mass at a level around 5 × 10⁻²³ eV or slightly better than current estimates obtained with LIGO observations.

In this paper we present new constraints on the Hubble parameter H₀ using: (i) the available data on H(z) obtained from cosmic chronometers (CCH); (ii) the Hubble rate data points extracted from the supernovae of Type Ia (SnIa) of the Pantheon compilation and the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) CANDELS and CLASH Multy-Cycle Treasury (MCT) programs; and (iii) the local HST measurement of H₀ provided by Riess et al. (2018), H₀^HST=(73.45±1.66) km/s/Mpc. Various determinations of H₀ using the Gaussian processes (GPs) method and the most updated list of CCH data have been recently provided by Yu, Ratra & Wang (2018). Using the Gaussian kernel they find H₀=(67.42± 4.75) km/s/Mpc. Here we extend their analysis to also include the most released and complete set of SnIa data, which allows us to reduce the uncertainty by a factor ∼ 3 with respect to the result found by only considering the CCH information. We obtain H₀=(67.06± 1.68) km/s/Mpc, which favors again the lower range of values for H₀ and is in tension with H₀^HST. The tension reaches the 2.71σ level. We round off the GPs determination too by taking also into account the error propagation of the kernel hyperparameters when the CCH with and without H₀^HST are used in the analysis. In addition, we present a novel method to reconstruct functions from data, which consists in a weighted sum of polynomial regressions (WPR). We apply it from a cosmographic perspective to reconstruct H(z) and estimate H₀ from CCH and SnIa measurements. The result obtained with this method, H₀=(68.90± 1.96) km/s/Mpc, is fully compatible with the GPs ones. Finally, a more conservative GPs+WPR value is also provided, H₀=(68.45± 2.00) km/s/Mpc, which is still almost 2σ away from H₀^HST.

The local velocity distribution of dark matter plays an integral role in interpreting the results from direct detection experiments. We previously showed that metal-poor halo stars serve as excellent tracers of the virialized dark matter velocity distribution using a high-resolution hydrodynamic simulation of a Milky Way-like halo. In this paper, we take advantage of the first Gaia data release, coupled with spectroscopic measurements from the RAdial Velocity Experiment (RAVE), to study the kinematics of stars belonging to the metal-poor halo within an average distance of ∼5 kpc of the Sun. We study stars with iron abundances [Fe/H] < −1.5 and −1.8 that are located more than 1.5 kpc from the Galactic plane. Using a Gaussian mixture model analysis, we identify the stars that belong to the halo population, as well as some kinematic outliers. We find that both metallicity samples have similar velocity distributions for the halo component, within uncertainties. Assuming that the stellar halo velocities adequately trace the virialized dark matter, we study the implications for direct detection experiments. The Standard Halo Model, which is typically assumed for dark matter, is discrepant with the empirical distribution by ∼6σ, predicts fewer high-speed particles, and is anisotropic. As a result, the Standard Halo Model overpredicts the nuclear scattering rate for dark matter masses below ∼10 GeV. The kinematic outliers that we identify may potentially be correlated with dark matter substructure, though further study is needed to establish this correspondence.

We cross-correlate the positions of damped Lyman-α systems (DLAs) and their parent quasar catalog with a convergence map derived from the Planck cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature data. We make consistent measurements of the lensing signal of both samples in both Fourier and configuration space. By interpreting the excess signal present in the DLA catalog with respect to the parent quasar catalog as caused by the large scale structure traced by DLAs, we are able to infer the bias of these objects: b_DLA=2.6±0.9. These results are consistent with previous measurements made in cross-correlation with the Lyman-α forest, although the current noise in the lensing data and the low number density of DLAs limits the constraining power of this measurement. We discuss the robustness of the analysis with respect to a number different systematic effects and forecast prospects of carrying out this measurement with data from future experiments.

We propose a qualitative scenario to interpret the argued association between the direct measurement of the gravitational wave event GW150914 by Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO)-Virgo collaborations and the hard X-ray transient detected by Fermi-Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) 0.4 sec after. In a binary system of two gravitationally collapsing objects with a non-vanishing electric charge, the compenetration of the two magnetospheres occurring during the coalescence, through magnetic reconnection, produces a highly collimated relativistic outflow that becomes optically thin and shines in the GBM field of view. We propose that this process should be expected as a commonplace in the future joint gravitational/electromagnetic detections and, in case of neutron star-neutron star merger event, might lead to detectable X- or γ-ray precursors to, or transients associated with, the gravitational bursts.

We evaluate for the first time the dark matter bispectrum of large-scale structure at two loops in the Standard Perturbation Theory and at three loops in the Renormalised Perturbation Theory (MPTBREEZE formalism), removing in each case the leading divergences in the integrals in order to make them infrared-safe. We show that the Standard Perturbation Theory at two loops can be employed to model the matter bispectrum further into the quasi-nonlinear regime compared to the one loop, up to k_max ∼ 0.1 h/Mpc at z = 0, but without reaching a high level of accuracy. In the case of the MPTBREEZE method, we show that its bispectra decay at smaller and smaller scales with increasing loop order, but with smaller improvements decreases with loop order. At three loops, this model predicts the bispectrum accurately up to scales k_max ∼ 0.17 h/Mpc at z = 0 and k_max ∼ 0.24 h/Mpc at z = 1.

Within this work, we propose a new generalised quintom dark energy model in the teleparallel alternative of general relativity theory, by considering a non-minimal coupling between the scalar fields of a quintom model with the scalar torsion component T and the boundary term B. In the teleparallel alternative of general relativity theory, the boundary term represents the divergence of the torsion vector, B=2∇_μT^μ, and is related to the Ricci scalar R and the torsion scalar T, by the fundamental relation: R=−T+B. We have investigated the dynamical properties of the present quintom scenario in the teleparallel alternative of general relativity theory by performing a dynamical system analysis in the case of decomposable exponential potentials. The study analysed the structure of the phase space, revealing the fundamental dynamical effects of the scalar torsion and boundary couplings in the case of a more general quintom scenario. Additionally, a numerical approach to the model is presented to analyse the cosmological evolution of the system.

Collective oscillations of supernova neutrinos above the neutrino sphere can be completely described by the propagation of individual neutrinos in external potentials and are in this sense a linear phenomenon. An effective theory of collective oscillations can be developed based on certain assumptions about time dependence of these potentials. General conditions for strong flavor transformations are formulated and these transformations can be interpreted as parametric resonance effects induced by periodic modulations of the potentials. We study a simplified and solvable example, where a probe neutrino is propagating in a flux of collinear neutrinos, such that ν ν− interactions in the flux are absent. Still, this example retains the main feature—the coherent flavor exchange. Properties of the parametric resonance are studied, and it is shown that integrations over energies and emission points of the flux neutrinos suppress modulations of the potentials and therefore strong transformations. The transformations are also suppressed by changes in densities of background neutrinos and electrons.

The increasing statistics of the high-energy neutrino flux observed by the IceCube Observatory points towards an excess of events above the atmospheric neutrino background in the 30–400 TeV energy range. Such an excess is compatible with the findings of the ANTARES Telescope and it would naturally imply the possibility that more than one source class contributes to the observed flux. Electromagnetically hidden sources have been invoked to interpret this excess of events at low energies. By adopting a unified model for the electromagnetically bright and choked gamma-ray bursts and taking into account particle acceleration at the internal and collimation shock radii, we discuss whether bright and choked bursts are viable candidates. Our findings suggest that, although producing a copious neutrino flux, choked and bright astrophysical jets cannot be the dominant sources of the excess of neutrino events. A fine tuning of the model parameters or distinct scenarios for choked jets should be invoked in order to explain the low-energy neutrino data of IceCube and ANTARES.

An inhomogeneous pseudo-scalar field configuration behaves like an optically active medium. Consequently, if a light ray passes through an axion cloud surrounding a Kerr black hole, it may experience a polarization-dependent bending. We explore the size and relevance of such effect considering both the QCD axion and a generic axion-like particle.

The gamma-ray annihilation and decay products of very heavy dark matter particles can undergo attenuation through pair production, leading to the development of electromagnetic cascades. This has a significant impact not only on the spectral shape of the gamma-ray signal, but also on the angular distribution of the observed photons. Such phenomena are particularly important in light of the new HAWC experiment, which provides unprecedented sensitivity to multi-TeV photons and thus to very heavy dark matter particles. In this study, we focus on dark matter in the 100 TeV–100 PeV mass range, and calculate the spectral and angular distribution of gamma-rays from dwarf galaxies and from nearby galaxy clusters in this class of models.

We develop an approach to parametrize cosmological perturbations beyond linear order for general dark energy and modified gravity models characterized by a single scalar degree of freedom. We derive the full nonlinear action, focusing on Horndeski theories. In the quasi-static, non-relativistic limit, there are a total of six independent relevant operators, three of which start at nonlinear order. The new nonlinear couplings modify, beyond linear order, the generalized Poisson equation relating the Newtonian potential to the matter density contrast. We derive this equation up to cubic order in perturbations and, in a companion article [1], we apply it to compute the one-loop matter power spectrum. Within this approach, we also discuss the Vainshtein regime around spherical sources and the relation between the Vainshtein scale and the nonlinear scale for structure formation.

We revisit the possibility of producing observable tensor modes through a continuous particle production process during inflation. Particularly, we focus on the multi-field realization of inflation where a spectator pseudoscalar σ induces a significant amplification of the U(1) gauge fields through the coupling ∝ σF_μν^μν. In this model, both the scalar σ and the Abelian gauge fields are gravitationally coupled to the inflaton sector, therefore they can only affect the primordial scalar and tensor fluctuations through their mixing with gravitational fluctuations. Recent studies on this scenario show that the sourced contributions to the scalar correlators can be dangerously large to invalidate a large tensor power spectrum through the particle production mechanism. In this paper, we re-examine these recent claims by explicitly calculating the dominant contribution to the scalar power and bispectrum. Particularly, we show that once the current limits from CMB data are taken into account, it is still possible to generate a signal as large as r ≈ 10⁻³ and the limitations on the model building are more relaxed than what was considered before.

We compare analytical computations with numerical simulations for dark-matter clustering, in general relativity and in the normal branch of DGP gravity (nDGP). Our analytical frameword is the Effective Field Theory of Large-Scale Structure (EFTofLSS), which we use to compute the one-loop dark-matter power spectrum, including the resummation of infrared bulk displacement effects. We compare this to a set of 20 COLA simulations at redshifts z = 0, z = 0.5, and z = 1, and fit the free parameter of the EFTofLSS, called the speed of sound, in both ΛCDM and nDGP at each redshift. At one-loop at z = 0, the reach of the EFTofLSS is k_reach ≈ 0.14 Mpc⁻¹ for both ΛCDM and nDGP. Along the way, we compare two different infrared resummation schemes and two different treatments of the time dependence of the perturbative expansion, concluding that they agree to approximately 1% over the scales of interest. Finally, we use the ratio of the COLA power spectra to make a precision measurement of the difference between the speeds of sound in ΛCDM and nDGP, and verify that this is proportional to the modification of the linear coupling constant of the Poisson equation.

Following a quasi model-independent approach we measure the transversal BAO mode at high redshift using the two-point angular correlation function (2PACF). The analyses done here are only possible now with the quasar catalogue from the twelfth data release (DR12Q) from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, because it is spatially dense enough to allow the measurement of the angular BAO signature with moderate statistical significance and acceptable precision. Our analyses with quasars in the redshift interval z ∊ [2.20,2.25] produce the angular BAO scale θ_BAO = 1.77° ± 0.31° with a statistical significance of 2.12 σ (i.e., 97% confidence level), calculated through a likelihood analysis performed using the theoretical covariance matrix sourced by the analytical power spectra expected in the ΛCDM concordance model. Additionally, we show that the BAO signal is robust—although with less statistical significance—under diverse bin-size choices and under small displacements of the quasars' angular coordinates. Finally, we also performed cosmological parameter analyses comparing the θ_BAO predictions for wCDM and w(a)CDM models with angular BAO data available in the literature, including the measurement obtained here, jointly with CMB data. The constraints on the parameters Ω_M, w₀ and w_a are in excellent agreement with the ΛCDM concordance model.