We explore screening effects arising from a relativistic magnetized plasma with applications to Big Bang nucleosynthesis (BBN). %Specifically, due to their small magnetic moments, energies of electrons and positrons can be easily quantized via Landau quantization. The screening potential which depends on the thermodynamics of charged particles in the plasma is altered by the magnetic field. We focus on the impact of screening on the electron capture interaction. Taking into account the correction in BBN arising from a homogeneous primordial magnetic field (PMF), we constrain the epoch at which the PMF was generated and its strength during BBN. Considering such screening corrections to the electron capture rates and using up-to-date observations of primordial elemental abundances, we also discuss the possibility of solving the problem of under-estimation of the deuterium abundance. We find for certain values of the PMF strength predicted D and $^4$He abundances are both consistent with the observational constraints.
Abundances of light nuclei formed during primordial nucleosynthesis are predicted by Standard Big Bang Model. The latest data from WMAP, with precision's higher than ever before, provides a motivation to determine theoretical higher order corrections to change in helium abundance and the related parameters. Here we evaluate the QED corrections to the change in these parameters during primordial nucleosynthesis using finite temperature effects at the two loop level. Relative variations in neutron decay rate, total energy density of the universe, relative change in neutrino temperature etc., wit…
Perturbative quantum corrections to primordial power spectra are important for testing the robustness and the regime of validity of inflation as an effective field theory. Although this has been done extensively for the density power spectrum (and, to some extent, for the tensor spectrum) using loop corrections, we do so in an open quantum system approach to the problem. Specifically, we calculate the first order corrections to the primordial gravitational wave spectrum due to (cubic) tensor interactions alone. We show that our results match expectations from standard loop corrections only in …
We discuss quantum gravitational loop effects to observable quantities such as curvature power spectrum and primordial non-Gaussianity of cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation. We first review the previously shown case where one gets a time dependence for zeta-zeta correlator due to loop corrections. Then we investigate the effect of loop corrections to primordial non-Gaussianity of CMB. We conclude that, even with a single scalar inflaton, one might get a huge value for non-Gaussianity which would exceed the observed value by at least 30 orders of magnitude. Finally we discuss the conse…
We show that monopoles can be pair produced by cosmological magnetic fields in the early universe. The pair production gives rise to relic monopoles, and at the same time induces a self-screening of the magnetic fields. By studying these effects we derive limits on the monopole mass, and also on the initial amplitude of primordial magnetic fields. Monopoles of GUT scale mass can even be produced if primordial magnetic fields exist at sufficiently high redshifts.
Together with holonomy corrections, inverse volume terms should be taken into account when studying the primordial universe in loop quantum cosmology. We investigate how the tensor power spectrum is modified with respect to the standard general relativistic prediction by those semiclassical corrections. Depending on the values of the free parameters of the model, it is shown that the spectrum can exhibit a very large deviation from its usual shape, in particular with a very red slope and a strong running in the infrared limit.
We consider two different definitions for loop corrections to the primordial power spectra. One of these is to simply correct the mode functions in the tree order relations using the linearized effective field equations. The second definition involves the spatial Fourier transform of the 2-point correlator. Although the two definitions agree at tree order, we show that they disagree at one loop using the Schwinger-Keldysh formalism, so there are at least two plausible ways of loop correcting the tree order result. We discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each.
We expound ten principles in an attempt to clarify the debate over infrared loop corrections to the primordial scalar and tensor power spectra from inflation. Among other things we note that existing proposals for nonlinear extensions of the scalar fluctuation field $ζ$ introduce new ultraviolet divergences which no one understands how to renormalize. Loop corrections and higher correlators of these putative observables would also be enhanced by inverse powers of the slow roll parameter $ε$. We propose an extension which should be better behaved.
We study one-loop corrections to the two-point correlation function of tensor perturbations in primordial cosmology induced by massless spectator matter fields. Using the Schwinger-Keldysh formalism in cosmological perturbation theory, we employ dimensional regularization and cutoff regularization to study the finite quantum corrections at one-loop arising from isocurvature fields of the massless scalar, fermion and abelian gauge field which are freely propagating on the FRW spacetime. For all cases, we find a logarithmic running of the form $\frac{C}{q^3} \, \frac{H^4}{M^4_p} \log \left( \fra…
We revisit the calculation of quantum-gravitational corrections to the power spectra of scalar and tensor perturbations in the Born-Oppenheimer approach to quantum gravity. We focus on the issue of the definition of the inner product of the theory and the unitarity of the corrections to the dynamics of the cosmological perturbations. We argue that the correction terms are unitary, provided the inner product is defined in a suitable way, which can be related to a notion of gauge-fixing the time variable and the use of conditional probabilities in quantum cosmology. We compare the corrections ob…
We investigate the stochastic gravitational wave background produced by primordial black hole binaries during their early inspiral stage while accreting high-density radiation surrounding them in the early universe. We first show that the gravitational wave amplitude produced from a primordial black hole binary has correction terms because of the rapid rate of increase in masses of the primordial black holes. These correction terms arise due to non-vanishing first and second time derivatives of the masses and their contribution to the overall second time derivative of quadrupole moment tensor.…
One-loop correction to the power spectrum in generic single-field inflation is calculated by using standard perturbation theory. Because of the enhancement inversely proportional to the observed red tilt of the spectral index of curvature perturbation, the correction turns out to be much larger than previously anticipated. As a result, the primordial non-Gaussianity must be much smaller than the current observational bound in order to warrant the validity of cosmological perturbation theory.
Loop Quantum Gravity (L.Q.G.) is one of the two most promising tentative theory for a quantum description of gravity. When applied to the entire universe, the so-called Loop Quantum Cosmology (L.Q.C.) framework offers microscopical models of the very early stages of the cosmological history, potentially solving the initial singularity problem via bouncing solutions or setting the universe in the appropriate initial conditions for inflation to start, via a phase of super-inflation. More interestingly, L.Q.C. could leave a footprint on cosmological observables such as the Cosmic Microwave Backgr…
In low-energy effective string theory, $α'$ corrections involve the coupling of the dilaton field to Gauss-Bonnet term. We assume that the dilaton potential is fine tuned so that the dilaton field may oscillate rapidly for a while around the minimum of its potential but the inflation background is not affected. By numerical method, we find that if the dilaton starts to oscillate at the time of about $\sim 60$ e-folds before the end of inflation, $α^\prime$ correction may bring unusual oscillations to the inflationary gravitational wave spectrum, which might be measurably imprinted in the CMB B…
We determine the relative ionization of deuterium and hydrogen in low metallicity damped Lyman-alpha (DLA) and sub-DLA systems using a detailed suite of photoionization simulations. We model metal-poor DLAs as clouds of gas in pressure equilibrium with a host dark matter halo, exposed to the Haardt & Madau (2012) background radiation of galaxies and quasars at redshift z~3. Our results indicate that the deuterium ionization correction correlates with the H I column density and the ratio of successive ion stages of the most commonly observed metals. The N(N II) / N(N I) column density ratio pro…
As one of the promising candidates of cold dark matter (DM), primordial black holes (PBHs) were formed due to the collapse of over-densed regions generated by the enhanced curvature perturbations during the radiation-dominated era. The enhanced curvature perturbations are expected to be non-Gaussian in some relevant inflation models and hence the higher-order loop corrections to the curvature power spectrum might be non-negligible as well as altering the abundance of PBHs. In this paper, we calculate the one-loop correction to the curvature power spectrum with local-type non-Gaussianities char…
It is well known that recombination radiation of primordial hydrogen-helium plasma leads to the distortions of the planckian spectrum shape of the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB). We discuss the thermal Sunyaev-Zeldovich (SZ) effect with taking into account primordial recombination radiation (PRR). Since in the thermal SZ effect the redistribution of the photons depends on the derivatives of the spectrum, the value of relative correction to SZ effect due to PRR significantly higher than relative corrections due to PRR in the initial spectrum. Calculations of corrections to the ther…
The slow-roll inflation for a single scalar field that couples to the Gauss-Bonnet (GB) term represents an important higher-order curvature correction inspired by string theory. With the arrival of the era of precision cosmology, it is expected that the high-order corrections become more and more important. In this paper we study the observational predictions of the slow-roll inflation with the GB term by using the third-order uniform asymptotic approximation method. We calculate explicitly the primordial power spectra, spectral indices, running of the spectral indices for both scalar and tens…
Relativistic effects in clustering observations have been shown to introduce scale-dependent corrections to the galaxy over-density field on large scales, which may hamper the detection of primordial non-Gaussianity $f_\textrm{NL}$ through the scale-dependent halo bias. The amplitude of relativistic corrections depends not only on the cosmological background expansion, but also on the redshift evolution and sensitivity to the luminosity threshold of the tracer population being examined, as parametrised by the evolution bias $b_\textrm{e}$ and magnification bias $s$. In this work, we propagate …
The formation of primordial black holes in the early universe in the Brans-Dicke scalar-tensor theory of gravity is investigated. Corrections to the threshold value of density perturbations are found. Above the threshold, the gravitational collapse occurs after the cosmological horizon crossing. The corrections depend in a certain way on the evolving scalar field. They affect the probability of primordial black holes formation, and can lead to their clustering at large scales if the scalar field is inhomogeneous. The formation of the clusters, in turn, increases the probability of black holes …
The present Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) temperature and polarization anisotropy data is consistent with not only a power law scalar primordial power spectrum (PPS) with a small running but also with the scalar PPS having very sharp features. This has motivated inflationary models with such sharp features. Recently, even the possibility of having nulls in the power spectrum (at certain scales) has been considered. The existence of these nulls has been shown in linear perturbation theory. What shall be the effect of higher order corrections on such nulls? Inspired by this question, we atte…
We study the impact of the use of the power series expression for the primordial tensor spectrum on parameter estimation from future direct detection gravitational wave experiments. The spectrum approximated by the power series expansion may give large deviation from the true (fiducial) value when it is normalized at CMB scale because of the large separation between CMB and direct detection scales. We derive the coefficients of the higher order terms of the expansion up to the sixth order within the framework of the slow-roll approximation and investigate how well the inclusion of higher order…
We explore the effect of a cubic correction gnl*phi^3 on the mass function and bias of dark matter haloes extracted from a series of large N-body simulations and compare it to theoretical predictions. Such cubic terms can be motivated in scenarios like the curvaton model, in which a large cubic correction can be produced while simultaneously keeping the quadratic fnl*phi^2 correction small. The deviation from the Gaussian halo mass function is in reasonable agreement with the theoretical predictions. The scale-dependent bias correction Delta b_kappa(k,gnl) measured from the auto- and cross-pow…
In this work we present constraints on different shapes of primordial non-Gaussianity using the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) 7-year data and the spherical Mexican hat wavelet fnl estimator including the linear term correction. In particular we focus on the local, equilateral and orthogonal shapes. We first analyse the main statistical properties of the wavelet estimator and show the conditions to reach optimality. We include the linear term correction in our estimators and compare the estimates with the values already published using only the cubic term. The estimators are teste…
We study the cosmological consequences of higher-dimensional operators respecting the asymptotic symmetries of the tree-level Higgs inflation action. The main contribution of these operators to the renormalization group enhanced potential is localized in a compact field range, whose upper limit is close to the end of inflation. The spectrum of primordial fluctuations in the so-called universal regime turns out to be almost insensitive to radiative corrections and in excellent agreement with the present cosmological data. However, higher-dimensional operators can play an important role in criti…
Primordial perturbations from ultra-slow-roll single-field inflation with quantum loop effects
Institute of Physics, Academia Sinica（中央研究院物理研究所）；Department of Physics, National Dong Hwa University（国立东华大学物理系）；Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Academia Sinica（中央研究院天文及天文物理研究所）
Inflation is the leading paradigm for explaining the origin of primordial density perturbations and the observed temperature fluctuations of the cosmic microwave background. However many open questions remain, in particular whether one or more scalar fields were present during inflation and how they contributed to the primordial density perturbation. We propose a new observational test of whether multiple fields, or only one (not necessarily the inflaton) generated the perturbations. We show that our test, relating the bispectrum and trispectrum, is protected against loop corrections at all or…
Distortions in the primordial cosmic microwave background (CMB) along the line-of-sight can be modeled and described using 11 fields. These distortion fields correspond to various cosmological signals such as weak gravitational lensing of the CMB by large-scale structure, screening from patchy reionization, rotation of the plane of polarization due to magnetic fields or parity violating physics. Various instrumental systematics such as gain fluctuations, pixel rotation, differential gain, pointing, differential ellipticity are also described by the same distortion model. All these distortions …
A standard scenario to form primordial black holes in the early universe is based on a phase of ultra-slow-roll in single-field inflation when the amplitude of the short scale modes is enhanced compared to the CMB plateau. Based on general arguments, we show that the loop corrections to the large-scale linear power spectrum from the short modes are small and conclude that the scenario is not ruled out.
We have previously presented a reconstruction of Horndeski scalar-tensor theories from linear cosmological observables. It includes free nonlinear terms which can be added onto the reconstructed covariant theory without affecting the background and linear dynamics. After discussing the uniqueness of these correction terms, we apply this nonlinear freedom to a range of different applications. First we demonstrate how the correction terms can be configured to endow the reconstructed models with screening mechanisms such as the chameleon, k-mouflage and Vainshtein effects. A further implication i…
Next-generation galaxy surveys will increasingly rely on the galaxy bispectrum to improve cosmological constraints, especially on primordial non-Gaussianity. A key theoretical requirement that remains to be developed is the analysis of general relativistic effects on the bispectrum, which arise from observing galaxies on the past lightcone, {as well as from relativistic corrections to the dynamics}. {As an initial step towards a fully relativistic analysis of the galaxy bispectrum, we compute for the first time the local relativistic lightcone effects on the bispectrum,} which come from Dopple…
We address the question of how one can modify the inflationary tensor spectrum without changing at all the successful predictions on the curvature perturbation. We show that this is indeed possible, and determine the two quadratic curvature corrections that are free from instabilities and affect only the tensor sector at the level of linear cosmological perturbations. Both of the two corrections can reduce the tensor amplitude, though one of them generates large non-Gaussianity of the curvature perturbation. It turns out that the other one corresponds to so-called Lorentz-violating Weyl gravit…
In this paper, we use a complete model of classical primordial standard clocks as an example to develop a methodology of directly comparing numerical predictions from complicated multi-field feature models with the Planck data, including the Planck 2018 Plik unbinned likelihood and the statistically most powerful CamSpec 2020 likelihood for temperature and polarization data. As this two-field inflationary model offers a plethora of primordial feature spectra that represent combinations of sharp and resonance feature signals non-trivially distributed over extended cosmological scales, its data …
We present a single-field string inflationary model which allows for the generation of primordial black holes in the low mass region where they can account for a significant fraction of the dark matter abundance. The potential is typical of type IIB fibre inflation models and features a plateau at CMB scales and a near inflection point at large distance scales where the power spectrum is enhanced due to a period of ultra slow-roll. The tunability of the underlying parameters is guaranteed by scanning through the string landscape and their stability against quantum corrections is ensured by an …
