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f(T) cosmology has shown promise in explaining aspects of cosmic evolution. In this work, we analyse constraints on leading models of f(T) gravity in the context of the recently released Pantheon+ data set, together with comparisons with previous releases. We also consider other late time data sets including cosmic chronometers and baryonic acoustic oscillation data. Our main result is that we find that the different f(T) models under investigation connect to a variety of Hubble constant, which may help alleviate the cosmic tension on this parameter.

The next generation of cosmological surveys will have unprecedented measurement precision, hence they hold the power to put theoretical ideas to the most stringent tests yet. However, in order to realise the full potential of these measurements, we need to ensure that we apply the most effective analytical tools. We need to identify which cosmological observables are the best cosmological probes. Two commonly used cosmological observables are galaxy redshift number counts and cosmic magnification. Both of these observables have been investigated extensively in cosmological analyses, but only separately. In the light of interacting dark energy (IDE) emerging as a plausible means of alleviating current cosmological tensions, we investigate both observables on large scales in a universe with IDE, using the angular power spectrum: taking into account all known terms, including relativistic corrections, in the observed overdensity. Our results suggest that (given multi-tracer analysis) measuring relativistic effects with cosmic magnification will be relatively better than with galaxy redshift number counts, at all redshifts z. Conversely, without relativistic effects, galaxy redshift number counts will be relatively better in probing the imprint of IDE, at all z. At low z (up to around z = 0.1), relativistic effects enable cosmic magnification to be a relatively better probe of the IDE imprint; while at higher z (up to z < 3), galaxy redshift number counts become the better probe of IDE imprint. However, at z = 3 and higher, our results suggest that either of the observables will suffice., 11 pages, 5 figures (v2: Minor general revision; Fig. 1 improved; new figure added; conclusion remains unchanged. Version accepted by MNRAS.)

Supermassive black holes (SMBHs) are a key catalyst of galaxy formation and evolution, leading to an observed correlation between SMBH mass $M_{\rm BH}$ and host galaxy velocity dispersion $\sigma_{\rm e}$. Outside the local Universe, measurements of $M_{\rm BH}$ are usually only possible for SMBHs in an active state: limiting sample size and introducing selection biases. Gravitational lensing makes it possible to measure the mass of non-active SMBHs. We present models of the $z=0.169$ galaxy-scale strong lens Abell~1201. A cD galaxy in a galaxy cluster, it has sufficient `external shear' that a magnified image of a $z = 0.451$ background galaxy is projected just $\sim 1$ kpc from the galaxy centre. Using multi-band Hubble Space Telescope imaging and the lens modeling software $\texttt{PyAutoLens}$ we reconstruct the distribution of mass along this line of sight. Bayesian model comparison favours a point mass with $M_{\rm BH} = 3.27 \pm 2.12\times10^{10}\,$M$_{\rm \odot}$ (3$\sigma$ confidence limit); an ultramassive black hole. One model gives a comparable Bayesian evidence without a SMBH, however we argue this model is nonphysical given its base assumptions. This model still provides an upper limit of $M_{\rm BH} \leq 5.3 \times 10^{10}\,$M$_{\rm \odot}$, because a SMBH above this mass deforms the lensed image $\sim 1$ kpc from Abell 1201's centre. This builds on previous work using central images to place upper limits on $M_{\rm BH}$, but is the first to also place a lower limit and without a central image being observed. The success of this method suggests that surveys during the next decade could measure thousands more SMBH masses, and any redshift evolution of the $M_{\rm BH}$--$\sigma_{\rm e}$ relation. Results are available at https://github.com/Jammy2211/autolens_abell_1201., Comment: Accepted in MNRAS, 27 pages, 22 figures

We propose a simple analytic fit for the power spectrum of scalar (curvature) perturbations during inflation, in order to describe slow roll of inflaton and formation of primordial black holes in the early universe, in the framework of single-field models. Our fit is given by a sum of the power spectrum in the slow-roll approximation, needed for a viable description of the cosmic microwave background radiation in agreement with Planck/BICEP/Keck measurements, and the log-normal (Gaussian) fit for the power spectrum enhancement (peak) needed for efficient production of primordial black holes. We use the T-type $\alpha$-attractor models in order to describe slow-roll inflation. Demanding the location and height of the peak to yield the masses of primordial black holes in the asteroid-size window allowed for the whole (current) dark matter to be composed of the primordial black holes, we find the restrictions on the remaining parameters and, most notably, on the width of the peak., Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures, LaTeX; Section 4 expanded, one figure and two references added

We analyse the $f(R)$ gravity in the so-called Jordan frame, as implemented to the isotropic Universe dynamics. The goal of the present study is to show that, according to recent data analyses of the supernovae Ia Pantheon sample, it is possible to account for an effective redshift dependence of the Hubble constant. This is achieved via the dynamics of a non-minimally coupled scalar field, as it emerges in the $f(R)$ gravity. We face the question both from an analytical and purely numerical point of view, following the same technical paradigm. We arrive to establish that the expected decay of the Hubble constant with the redshift $z$ is ensured by a form of the scalar field potential, which remains essentially constant for $z\lesssim0.3$, independently if this request is made a priori, as in the analytical approach, or obtained a posteriori, when the numerical procedure is addressed. Thus, we demonstrate that an $f(R)$ dark energy model is able to account for an apparent variation of the Hubble constant due to the rescaling of the Einstein constant by the $f(R)$ scalar mode., Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS Letters (manuscript version after the proof corrections)

Gravitational lensing of fast radio bursts (FRBs) offers an exciting avenue for several cosmological applications. However, it is not yet clear how many such events future surveys will detect nor how to optimally find them. We use the known properties of FRBs to forecast detection rates of gravitational lensing on delay time-scales from microseconds to years, corresponding to lens masses spanning 15 orders of magnitude. We highlight the role of the FRB redshift distribution on our ability to observe gravitational lensing. We consider cosmological lensing of FRBs by stars in foreground galaxies and show that strong stellar lensing will dominate on microsecond time-scales. Upcoming surveys such as DSA-2000 and CHORD will constrain the fraction of dark matter in compact objects (e.g. primordial black holes) and may detect millilensing events from intermediate mass black holes (IMBHs) or small dark matter halos. Coherent all-sky monitors will be able to detect longer-duration lensing events from massive galaxies, in addition to short time-scale lensing. Finally, we propose a new application of FRB gravitational lensing that will measure directly the circumgalactic medium of intervening galaxies.

The early dark energy (EDE) solution to the Hubble tension comes at the cost of an increased clustering amplitude that has been argued to worsen the fit to galaxy clustering data. We explore whether freeing the total neutrino mass $M_{\nu}$, which can suppress small-scale structure growth, improves EDE's fit to galaxy clustering. Using Planck Cosmic Microwave Background and BOSS galaxy clustering data, a Bayesian analysis shows that freeing $M_{\nu}$ does not appreciably increase the inferred EDE fraction $f_{\rm EDE}$: we find the 95% C.L. upper limits $f_{\rm EDE}, Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures. v3: included additional discussions and 3 figures which further strengthen our results and their interpretation, added further references, slight format change. Accepted for publication in MNRAS. and associated Jupyter notebook available at https://github.com/alexreevesy/ede_mnu

We introduce a modification of the Press-Schechter formalism aimed to derive general mass functions for primordial black holes (PBHs). In this case, we start from primordial power spectra (PPS) which include a monochromatic spike, typical of ultra slow-roll inflation models. We consider the PBH formation as being associated to the amplitude of the spike on top of the linear energy density fluctuations, coming from a PPS with a blue index. By modelling the spike with a log-normal function, we study the properties of the resulting mass function spikes, and compare these to the underlying extended mass distributions. When the spike is at PBH masses which are much lower than the exponential cutoff of the extended distribution, very little mass density is held by the PBHs within the spike, and it is not ideal to apply the Press-Schechter formalism in this case as the resulting characteristic overdensity is too different from the threshold for collapse. It is more appropriate to do so when the spike mass is similar to, or larger than the cutoff mass. Additionally, it can hold a similar mass density as the extended part. Such particular mass functions also contain large numbers of small PBHs, especially if stable PBH relics are considered, and they can provide $\sim 1000M_\odot$ seeds for the supermassive black holes at the centres of present-day galaxies. The constraints on the fraction of dark matter in PBHs for monochromatic mass functions are somewhat relaxed when there is an additional underlying extended distribution of masses., 14 pages, 4 figures, 1 table, refereces added, discussion extended and conclusion unchanged. Accepted for publication in MNRAS

We consider the unified bulk viscous scenarios and constrain them using the Cosmic Microwave Background observations from Planck 2018 and the Pantheon sample from Type Ia Supernovae. Then we generate the luminosity distance measurements from ${\cal O}(10^3)$ mock Gravitational Wave Standard Sirens (GWSS) events for the proposed Einstein Telescope. We then combine these mock luminosity distance measurements from the GWSS with the current cosmological probes in order to forecast how the mock GWSS data could be effective in constraining these bulk viscous scenarios. Our results show that a non-zero time dependent bulk viscosity in the universe sector is strongly preferred by the current cosmological probes and will possibly be confirmed at many standard deviations by the future GWSS measurements. We further mention that the addition of GWSS data can significantly reduce the uncertainties of the key cosmological parameters obtained from the usual cosmological probes employed in this work., Comment: 11 pages, 3 tables and 4 figures. Version accepted for publication in MNRAS

Early data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has uncovered the existence of a surprisingly abundant population of very massive galaxies at extremely high redshift, which are hard to accommodate within the standard $\Lambda$CDM cosmology. We explore whether the JWST observations may be pointing towards more complex dynamics in the dark energy (DE) sector. Motivated by the ubiquity of anti-de Sitter vacua in string theory, we consider a string-inspired scenario where the DE sector consists of a negative cosmological constant (nCC) and a evolving component with positive energy density on top, whose equation of state is allowed to cross the phantom divide. We show that such a scenario can drastically alter the growth of structure compared to $\Lambda$CDM, and accommodate the otherwise puzzling JWST observations if the dynamical component evolves from the quintessence-like regime in the past to the phantom regime today: in particular, we demonstrate that the presence of a nCC (which requires a higher density for the evolving component) plays a crucial role in enhancing the predicted cumulative comoving stellar mass density. Our work reinforces the enormous potential held by observations of the abundance of high-$z$ galaxies in probing cosmological models and new fundamental physics, including string-inspired ingredients., Comment: 26 pages, 8 sub-figures arranged into 4 figures

We investigate the production process of induced gravity waves due to large scalar fluctuations in the paradigm of quintessential inflation. We numerically solve the Mukhanov-Sasaki equation for different sets of parameters to obtain the power spectra. We demonstrate that the induced gravity wave signal generated in this framework can falls within the region of the NANOGrav data for chosen values of model parameters. We show that there is an allowed region of parameter space where the effect shifts to high frequency regime relevant to LISA and other available sensitivities., Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures

Pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) provide a way to detect gravitational waves (GWs) at nanohertz frequencies. To ensure the detection of GWs, observational data must exhibit the Hellings-Downs angular correlation. It is also known that PTAs can probe ultralight dark matter. In this paper, we consider possible contamination of the Hellings-Downs angular correlation by the ultralight dark matter. We find that ultralight vector dark matter can give rise to the deformation of the Hellings-Downs correlation curve. Thus, the Hellings-Downs correlation curve could contain information on ultralight dark matter with a spin., Comment: 13pages, 3 figures

Recently, pulsar timing array (PTA) experiments reported the observation of a stochastic gravitational wave (GW) background in the nanohertz range frequency band. We show that such signal can be originated from a cosmological first-order phase transition (PT) within a well-motivated heavy (visible) QCD axion model. Considering the Peccei-Quinn symmetry breaking at the TeV scale in the scenario, we find a supercooled PT, in the parameter space of the model, prolonging the PT with the reheating temperature at the GeV scale., Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures

We use a full general relativistic framework to study the self-similar expansion of bubbles of the stable phase into a flat Friedmann-Lema\^itre-Robertson-Walker Universe in a first order phase transition in the early Universe. With a simple linear barotropic equation of state in both phases, and in the limit of a phase boundary of negligible width, we find that self-similar solutions exist, which are qualitatively similar to the analogous solutions in Minkowski space, but with distinguishing features. Rarefaction waves extend to the centre of the bubble, while spatial sections near the centre of the bubble have negative curvature. Gravitational effects redistribute the kinetic energy of the fluid around the bubble, and can change the kinetic energy fraction significantly. The kinetic energy fraction of the gravitating solution can be enhanced over the analogous Minkowski solution by as much as $\mathcal{O}(1)$, and suppressed by a factor as larger as $\mathcal{O}(10)$ in case of fast detonations. The amount of negative spatial curvature at the centre of the bubble is of the same order of magnitude of the naive expectation based on considerations of the energy density perturbation in Minkowski solutions, with gravitating deflagrations less negatively curved, and detonations more. We infer that general relativistic effects might have a significant impact on accurate calculations of the gravitational wave power spectrum when the bubble size becomes comparable to the cosmological Hubble radius, affecting the primary generation from the fluid shear stress, and inducing secondary generation by scalar perturbations., Comment: 42 pages, 11 figures

This paper is devoted to studying the observational signatures modified by Bardeen black hole via shadow and strong lensing observations. Influence of the modified Bardeen black hole parameters q, g, and the parameter $\mu$ on the shadow radius of the black hole have been investigated numerically and graphically. Recently, EHT collaboration observed the image and shadow of supermassive black holes $M87^*$ and $SgrA^*$ where the shadow angular diameter $\theta_d=42\pm3$ for $M87^*$ and $\theta_d=51.8\pm2.3$ for $SgrA^*$. The modified black hole parameters q and $\mu$ for the fixed value of g have been constrained by the EHT collaboration data for the angular shadow diameter of $M87^*$ and $SgrA^*$. It has been observed that the constrain ranges of the parameters $\mu$ and $q$ of modified Bardeen black hole as $-0.89\leq \mu/8M^2 \leq 0.4$ and $0\leq |q|\leq 0.185$ for $M87^*$; and $-1.38\leq \mu/8M^2 \leq 0.1$ and $0\leq |q|\leq 0.058$ for $SgrA^*$, keeping the fixed value $g/2M=0.2$. Modified Bardeen black holes with the additional parameters $\mu$,$g$ and $q$ besides the mass M of the black hole as the supermassive black holes $M87^*$ and $SgrA^*$; and it is observed that to be a viable astrophysical black hole candidate. Furthermore, Gravitational lensing in the strong field limit for modified Bardeen black hole has been investigated numerically as well as graphically and compared to the other ordinary astrophysical black hole such as Schwarzschild ($\mu=\&q=0$) and regular Bardeen ($\mu=0$) black hole., Comment: 20 pages, 30 figures

With axions now a primary candidate for dark matter, understanding their indirect astrophysical signatures is of paramount importance. Key to this is the production of photons from axions in magnetised astrophysical plasmas. While simple formulae for axion-photon mixing in 1D have been sketched several decades ago, there has recently been renewed interest in robust calculations for this process in arbitrary 3D plasmas. These calculations are vital for understanding, amongst other things, the radio production from axion dark matter conversion in neutron stars, which may lead to indirect axion dark matter detection with current telescopes or future searches, e.g., by the SKA. In this paper, we derive the relevant transport equations in magnetised plasmas. These equations describe both the production and propagation of photons in an arbitrary 3D medium due to the resonant conversion of axions into photons. They also fully incorporate the refraction of photons, and we find no evidence for a conjectured phenomenon of de-phasing. Our result is free of divergences which plagued previous calculations, and our kinetic theory description provides a direct link between ray tracing and the production mechanism. These results mark an important step toward solving one of the major open questions concerning indirect searches of axions in recent years, namely how to compute the photon production rate from axions in arbitrary 3D plasmas., Comment: 45 Pages, 5 figures. Comments welcome

In this study, we propose a reparameterization of a specific viable $f(R)$ gravity model to represent it as a perturbation of the $\Lambda$CDM model. The $f(R)$ gravity model under consideration includes two parameters, $b$ and $n$, which control how close the proposed model can be to $\Lambda$CDM, allowing for arbitrary proximity. Furthermore, it is shown that the Hu-Sawicki (HS) model is a limiting case of this reparameterized model. Following the existing literature, we also derive an analytical approximation for the expansion rate $H(z)$, which shows an excellent agreement between this analytical approximation and the numerical solution over a wide range of redshifts for realistic values of the deviation parameter $b$. By appropriately selecting values for the model parameters, we plot the cosmological parameters $w_{\rm{DE}}$, $w_{\rm{eff}}$, $\Omega_{\rm{DE}}$, and $H(z)$, as well as the statefinder quantities $q$, $j$, $s$, and $Om(z)$. We find that their present values (at $z=0$) are consistent with the observations from Planck 2018 and the values predicted by the $\Lambda$CDM model. It is important to note that the examined cosmological and statefinder parameters do not exhibit significant oscillations of effective dark energy, which could lead to singular and unphysical solutions at high redshifts. This anomalous behavior has been avoided here by utilizing the approximate analytical solution for $H(z)$. Additionally, we conduct a detailed analysis of the evolution of matter density perturbations within the introduced $f(R)$ gravity model. The results demonstrate that this viable $f(R)$ gravity model is practically indistinguishable from the $\Lambda$CDM model at the background level., Comment: 21 pages, 22 figures, 1 table

We provide a mean curvature flow method for numerical cosmology and test it on cases of inhomogenous inflation. The results show (in a proof of concept way) that the method can handle even large inhomogeneities that result from different regions exiting inflation at different times.

We present a comprehensive analysis of the $\Lambda_{\rm s}$CDM model, which explores the recent conjecture suggesting a rapid transition of the Universe from anti-de Sitter vacua to de Sitter vacua (viz., the cosmological constant switches sign from negative to positive) at redshift ${z_\dagger\sim 2}$, inspired by the graduated dark energy (gDE) model. Our analysis shows that, predicting $z_\dagger\approx1.7$, $\Lambda_{\rm s}$CDM simultaneously addresses the major cosmological tensions of the standard $\Lambda$CDM model, viz., the Hubble constant $H_0$, the Type Ia Supernovae absolute magnitude $M_{\rm B}$, and the growth parameter $S_8$ tensions, along with other less significant tensions such as the BAO Lyman-$\alpha$ discrepancy., Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, 1 table, and Supplemental material (7 pages, 8 figures, 2 tables)

The non-thermal nature of the stochastic gravitational-wave background of cosmological origin (CGWB) poses a challenge in defining the initial conditions for the graviton overdensity. Specifically, the adiabatic initial condition, which holds for Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) photons, is not guaranteed a priori for the primordial GWs. In this letter, we compute the initial conditions for the cosmological background generated by quantum fluctuations of the metric during inflation. Our analysis reveals that adiabatic initial conditions are no longer valid. The violation of adiabaticity arises from the presence of independent tensor perturbations during inflation, which behave as two extra fields that affect the standard single-clock argument. Since the energy density of the CGWB is subdominant compared to ordinary matter, gravitational radiation plays a negligible role in Einstein's equations. Therefore, the only way to compute the initial conditions is to perturb the energy-momentum tensor defined in terms of the gravitational strain. A direct consequence of our finding is that the initial conditions from inflation enhance the total CGWB angular power-spectrum by an order of magnitude compared to the standard adiabatic case., 7 pages, 1 figure

The purpose of this work is to investigate the formation and evaporation of the primordial black holes in the inflationary scenarios. Thermodynamic parameters such as mass, temperature and entropy are expressed in terms of NANOGrav frequency. By numerical calculations we show that the constraint on the mass range $10^{-5}kg-10^{50}kg$ is well confirmed. We discuss the relation between the redshift and the probability for gravitational wave source populations. A new parameter associated with the frequency and Hubble rate is presented, by which for the spectral index $n_{s}\approx 0.996$ and the Hubble constant $H_{0}\approx 67.27km.s^{-1}.Mpc^{-1}$, the effective Hubble constant is calculated to be $H_{eff,0}\approx 73.24km.s^{-1}.Mpc^{-1} $ which is compatible with the observational data. We make a comparison between the Hubble tension and the primordial perturbations and the expression of the mass loss rate, chemical potential and central charge needed to describe the Hawking evaporation will be established.

We find the conditions under which scale-invariant Einstein-Cartan gravity with scalar matter fields leads to an approximate conformal invariance of the flat space particle theory up to energies of the order of the Planck mass. In the minimal setup, these models, in addition to the fields of the Standard Model and the graviton, contain only one extra particle -- a massless dilaton. Theories of this type can pave the way for a self-completion all the way up the Planck scale and lead to rather universal inflationary predictions, close to those of the simplest Higgs-inflation scenario in the metric theory of gravity., 38 pages, 2 figures

We introduce GWDALI, a new Fisher-matrix, python based software that computes likelihood gradients to forecast parameter-estimation precision of arbitrary network of terrestrial gravitational wave detectors observing compact binary coalescences. The main new feature with respect to analogous software is to assess parameter uncertainties beyond Fisher-matrix approximation, using the derivative approximation for Likelihood (DALI). The software makes optional use of the LSC algorithm library LAL and the stochastic sampling algorithm Bilby, which can be used to perform Monte-Carlo sampling of exact or approximate likelihood functions. As an example we show comparison of estimated precision measurement of selected astrophysical parameters for both the actual likelihood, and for a variety of its derivative approximations, which turn out particularly useful when the Fisher matrix is not invertible., 18 pages, 11 figures

Gravitational-wave observations by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and Virgo have provided us a new tool to explore the universe on all scales from nuclear physics to the cosmos and have the massive potential to further impact fundamental physics, astrophysics, and cosmology for decades to come. In this paper we have studied the science capabilities of a network of LIGO detectors when they reach their best possible sensitivity, called A#, and a new generation of observatories that are factor of 10 to 100 times more sensitive (depending on the frequency), in particular a pair of L-shaped Cosmic Explorer observatories (one 40 km and one 20 km arm length) in the US and the triangular Einstein Telescope with 10 km arms in Europe. We use a set of science metrics derived from the top priorities of several funding agencies to characterize the science capabilities of different networks. The presence of one or two A# observatories in a network containing two or one next generation observatories, respectively, will provide good localization capabilities for facilitating multimessenger astronomy and precision measurement of the Hubble parameter. A network of two Cosmic Explorer observatories and the Einstein Telescope is critical for accomplishing all the identified science metrics including the nuclear equation of state, cosmological parameters, growth of black holes through cosmic history, and make new discoveries such as the presence of dark matter within or around neutron stars and black holes, continuous gravitational waves from rotating neutron stars, transient signals from supernovae, and the production of stellar-mass black holes in the early universe. For most metrics the triple network of next generation terrestrial observatories are a factor 100 better than what can be accomplished by a network of three A# observatories., 45 pages, 20 figures

Ultralight bosonic fields (ULBFs) are predicted by various theories beyond the standard model of particle physics and are viable candidates of cold dark matter. There have been increasing interests to search for the ULBFs in physical and astronomical experiments. In this paper, we investigate the sensitivity of several planned space-based gravitational-wave interferometers to ultralight scalar and vector fields. Using time-delay interferometry (TDI) to suppress the overwhelming laser frequency noise, we derive the averaged transfer functions of different TDI combinations to scalar and vector fields, and estimate the impacts of bosonic field's velocities. We obtain the sensitivity curves for LISA, Taiji and TianQin, and explore their projected constraints on the couplings between ULBFs and standard model particles, illustrating with the ULBFs as dark matter., 33 pages,8 figures

In the primordial plasma, at temperatures above the scale of electroweak symmetry breaking, the presence of chiral asymmetries is expected to induce the development of helical hypermagnetic fields through the phenomenon of chiral plasma instability. It results in magnetohydrodynamic turbulence due to the high conductivity and low viscosity and sources gravitational waves that survive in the universe today as a stochastic polarized gravitational wave background. In this article, we show that this scenario only relies on Standard Model physics, and therefore the observable signatures, namely the relic magnetic field and gravitational background, are linked to a single parameter controlling the initial chiral asymmetry. We estimate the magnetic field and gravitational wave spectra, and validate these estimates with 3D numerical simulations., 8 pages, 4 figures, 1 table

The stochastic signal detected by pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) has raised great interest in understanding its physical origin. Assuming the signal is a cosmological gravitational-wave background produced by overly large primordial density perturbations, we investigate the sound speed resonance effect with an oscillatory behavior using the combined PTA data from NANOGrav 15-yr data set, PPTA DR3, and EPTA DR2. We find that the stochastic signal can be explained by the induced gravitational waves sourced by the sound speed resonance mechanism, with the oscillation frequency $f_* \in [1.52, 4.67] \times 10^{-7}$Hz and the start time of oscillation $|\tau_0| \in [2.17, 95.7] \times 10^7$s., Comment: 16 pages, 2 figures, 1 table

We show that, whenever the perturbations of some field are excited during inflation by a physical process on sub-horizon scales, they unavoidably generate, even through gravitational interactions alone, a significant resonant IR cascade of power down to scales that are of the order of the horizon at that time (we denote these scales as near IR). We provide general analytic one-loop results for the enhancement of the IR power of the curvature perturbation generated by this effect, highlighting the role played by the resonance. We then study a number of examples in which the excited state is: (i) an isocurvature field, (ii) the curvature perturbation itself, (iii) a mixture of curvature and isocurvature fluctuations driven to an excited state by their coupled dynamics. In the cases shown, the cascade significantly modifies the near IR part of the power spectrum of the curvature perturbation with respect to the linear theory, indicating that this effect can impact the phenomenology associated with a variety of mechanisms considered in the literature, notably concerning primordial black holes and gravitational waves., 37 pages, 5 figures

This thesis treats the topic of CMB Spectral Distortions (SDs), which represent any deviation from a pure black body shape of the CMB energy spectrum. As such, they can be used to probe the inflationary, expansion and thermal evolution of the universe both within $\Lambda$CDM and beyond it. The currently missing observation of this rich probe of the universe makes of it an ideal target for future observational campaigns. In fact, while the $\Lambda$CDM signal guarantees a discovery, the sensitivity to a wide variety of new physics opens the door to an enormous uncharted territory. In light of these considerations, the thesis opens by reviewing the topic of CMB SDs in a pedagogical and illustrative fashion, aimed at waking the interest of the broader community. This introductory premise sets the stage for the first main contribution of the thesis to the field of SDs: their implementation in the Boltzmann solver CLASS and the parameter inference code MontePython. The CLASS+MontePython pipeline is publicly available, fast, it includes all sources of SDs within $\Lambda$CDM and many others beyond that, and allows to consistently account for any observational setup. By means of these numerical tools, the second main contribution of the thesis consists in showcasing the versatility and competitiveness of SDs for several cosmological models as well as for a number of different mission designs. Among others, the results cover features in the primordial power spectrum, primordial gravitational waves, non-standard dark matter properties, primordial black holes, primordial magnetic fields and Hubble tension. Finally, the manuscript is disseminated with (20) follow-up ideas that naturally extend the work carried out so far, highlighting how rich of unexplored possibilities the field of CMB SDs still is. The hope is that these suggestions will become a propeller for further interesting developments., Comment: PhD thesis. Pedagogical review of theory, experimental status and numerical tools (CLASS+MontePython) with broad overview of applications. Includes 20 original follow-up ideas

Invertible disformal transformations serve as a useful tool to explore ghost-free scalar-tensor theories. In this paper, we construct a generalization of invertible disformal transformations that involves arbitrary higher-order covariant derivatives of the scalar field. As a result, we obtain a more general class of ghost-free scalar-tensor theories than ever. Notably, our generalization is such that matter fields can be consistently coupled to these theories without introducing an unwanted extra degree of freedom in the unitary gauge., 9 pages

Recently it has been shown that the cosmological dynamics of covariant $f(Q)$ gravity depend on different affine connections. In this paper, two specific $f(Q)$ models are investigated with SNe+CC+BAO+QSO observational data, and the spatial curvature of the universe is studied in covariant $f(Q)$ gravity. It is found that the parameter $\mathcal{X}$ characterizing affine connections significantly affects the behavior of the effective equation of state $w_Q$ and may drive it across the phantom divide line. A flat universe could be favored in covariant $f(Q)$ gravity rather than the $\Lambda$CDM model. These results imply some inertial effects of the universe change the cosmic dynamics and renew our cognition of the geometric structure of the universe., Comment: 14 pages, 6 figures, 3 tables

We study a new source of stochastic gravitational wave background (SGWB) from the final collapse of a string-wall network. In the context of $N_{\rm DW}=1$ axionic string-wall network, the final collapse of walls bounded by strings can release gravitational waves (GWs). This source is typically considered negligible due to its subdominance compared to GW emissions throughout the long-term evolution in the scaling regime. However, in some cases, a network can be driven outside of horizon by inflation and later re-enter horizon. Then, the network's final collapse after re-entering horzion becomes the dominant GW source and therefore cannot be neglected. Our caculation of the corresponding GW spectrum suggests it could potentially explain the nano-Hertz SGWB signal possibly detected by various Pulsar Timing Array experiments. In addition, with different parameter choices, the resultant GWs could be probed by various GW interferometry experiments., 5 pages, 3 figures

We present a comprehensive study of Parker-type bounds on magnetic monopoles with arbitrary magnetic charge, including minicharged monopoles and magnetic black holes. We derive the bounds based on the survival of galactic magnetic fields, seed magnetic fields, as well as primordial magnetic fields. We find that monopoles with different magnetic charges are best constrained by different astrophysical systems: while monopoles with a Dirac charge are tightly constrained by seed galactic magnetic fields, minicharged monopoles are strongly constrained by primordial magnetic fields, and magnetic black holes by the density of dark matter. We also assess the viability of the various types of monopoles as dark matter, by studying whether they can cluster with galaxies hosting magnetic fields., 33 pages, 6 figures

We obtain a new sample of 1192 Type I quasars with the UV-optical, radio and X-ray wavebands coverage by combining \citet{Huang2022} and other matching data of SDSS-DR16 with FIRST, XMM-Newton, and Chandra Source Catalog, and a sample of 407 flat-spectrum radio-loud quasars (FSRLQs) of blazars from the Roma-BZCAT, which can be used to investigate their multi-band luminosity correlations and measure the luminosity distances of these Type I radio-loud quasars (RLQs) samples. We check the correlation between X-ray, UV-optical, and radio luminosity for various groupings of radio-quiet quasars (RQQs) and RLQs by parameterizing X-ray luminosity as a sole function of UV-optical or radio luminosity and as a joint function of UV-optical radio luminosity, which also can be employed to determine these cosmological distances. By Bayesian information criterion (BIC), the data suggest that the X-ray luminosity of RQQs is indirectly correlative with radio luminosity because of the connection between UV-optical and radio luminosity. But for RLQs, the X-Ray luminosity is directly related to radio luminosity, and the correlations between X-ray, optical/UV, and radio luminosity increase with the ratio of monochromatic luminosities logR. Meanwhile, we compare the results from RLQs with different UV-optical power law index ${\Gamma _{UV}}$, the goodness of fit for RLQs with ${\Gamma _{UV}}\le 1.6$ seems to be better. Finally, we apply a combination of Type I RLQs and SN Ia Pantheon to verify the nature of dark energy concerning whether or not its density deviates from the constant, and give the statistical results., Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2207.08390

In this paper, we propose a novel mechanism in $\mathbb{T}^2$-inflation to enhance the power spectrum large enough to seed primordial black holes (PBHs) formation. To accomplish this, we consider the coupling function between the inflaton field and $\mathbb{T}^2= T_{\mu \nu}T^{\mu \nu}$ term. PBHs formed within this scenario can contribute partially or entirely to dark matter (DM) abundance. Furthermore, the amplification in the scalar power spectrum will concurrently produce significant scalar-induced gravitational waves (SIGWs) as a second-order effect. In addition, the energy spectrum associated with SIGWs can be compatible with the recent NANOGrav 15-year stochastic gravitational wave detection and fall into the sensitivity range of other forthcoming GW observatories., Comment: 8 pages, 7 figures, and one table

We provide a pedagogical approach to gravitational waves in cosmology with focus on gravitational wave signals related to primordial black holes. These lectures notes contain more details than one is able to present in the two two-hour lectures they are meant to and, as such, they should be thought as a complementary material. The main aim of these lectures is that, by the end, one obtains a certain degree of intuition on gravitational waves in cosmology and understands the basic features of scalar induced gravitational waves. We also highlight must-check properties of induced gravitational waves as well as current issues regarding secondary gravitational waves in cosmology. Throughout the lecture we provide exercises, supplementary information and activities with public codes to be ready to derive your own results., Lectures notes prepared for the ICCUB School 2023 on Primordial Black holes in the University of Barcelona. Comments and corrections are welcome

The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) will detect gravitational waves (GWs) emitted by massive black hole binaries (MBHBs) in the low-frequency ($\sim$mHz) band. Low-mass lenses, such as dark-matter (DM) subhalos, have sizes comparable to the wavelength of these GWs. Encounters with these lenses produce wave-optics (WO) effects that alter waveform phase and amplitude. Thus, a single event with observable WO effects can be used to probe the lens properties. In this paper, we first compute the probability of observing WO effects in a model-agnostic way. We perform parameter estimation over approximately 1000 MBHBs with total mass, mass ratio, and redshift spanning the ranges relevant to LISA. We then calculate lensing rates using three semi-analytical models of MBHB populations. In both cases, we use a waveform model that includes merger, ringdown, and higher-order modes. We use two lens population models: the theory-based Press-Schechter halo mass function and an observation-based model derived from Sloan Digital Sky Survey, called the measured velocity function. We find that the probability of detecting WO effects can be as large as $\sim 3\%$, $\sim1.5\%$, and $\sim 1 \%$ at $1\sigma$, $3\sigma$, and $5\sigma$ confidence levels, respectively. The most optimistic MBHB population model yields $\sim 8$, $\sim 4$, and $\sim 3$ events at the same confidence levels, while the rates drop to $\sim 0.01$ in the more pessimistic scenarios. The most likely lens masses probed by LISA are in the range $(10^3, 10^8)\, M_{\odot}$, and the most probable redshifts are in the range $(0.3, 1.7)$. Therefore, LISA observations of WO effects can probe DM subhalos, complementing strong lensing and other observations., Comment: 24 pages, 15 figures. Comments are welcome

Within the extension of the $$\varLambda $$ Λ CDM model, allowing for the presence of neutrinos or warm dark matter, we develop the analytical cosmological perturbation theory. It covers all spatial scales where the weak gravitational field regime represents a valid approximation. Discrete particles – the sources of the inhomogeneous gravitational field – may be relativistic. Similarly to the previously investigated case of nonrelativistic matter, the Yukawa interaction range is naturally incorporated into the first-order scalar metric corrections.

In this letter, we propose a new generalized mass-to-horizon relation to be used in the context of entropic cosmologies and holographic principle scenarios. We show that a general scaling of the mass with the Universe horizon as $M=\gamma \frac{c^2}{G}L^n$ leads to a new generalized entropy $S_n = \gamma \frac{n}{1+n}\frac{2 \pi\,k_B\,c^3}{G\,\hbar} L^{n+1}$ from which we can recover many of the recently proposed forms of entropies at cosmological and black hole scales and also establish a thermodynamically consistent relation between each of them and Hawking temperature. We analyse the consequences of introducing this new mass-to-horizon relation on cosmological scales by comparing the corresponding modified Friedmann, acceleration, and continuity equations to cosmological data. We find that when $n=3$, the entropic cosmology model is fully and totally equivalent to the standard $\Lambda$CDM model, thus providing a new fundamental support for the origin and the nature of the cosmological constant. In general, if $\log \gamma < -3$, and irrespective of the value of $n$, we find a very good agreement with the data comparable with $\Lambda$CDM from which, in Bayesian terms, our models are indistinguishable., Comment: 7 pages, 1 table

The astrophysical Stochastic Gravitational Wave Background (SGWB) originates from the mergers of compact binary objects in the observable Universe that are otherwise undetected as individual events, along with other sources such as supernovae, magnetars etc. The individual GW signal is time-varying over a time scale that depends on the chirp mass of the coalescing binaries. Another timescale that plays a role is the timescale at which the sources repeat, which depends on the merger rate. The combined effect of these two leads to a breakdown of the time-translation symmetry of the observed SGWB and leads to a correlation between different frequency modes in the signal covariance matrix of the SGWB. Using an ensemble of SGWB sky map due to binary black hole (BBH) coalescence, calculated using simulations of different astrophysical and primordial black hole mass distribution and merger rates, we show how the structure of the signal covariance matrix varies. This structure in the signal covariance matrix brings additional information about the sources on top of the power spectrum of the SGWB. We show that there is up to a factor of 2.5 improvement in the Figure of Merit (FoM) by using this additional information in comparison to only power spectrum estimation for the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA (LVK) network of detectors with the design sensitivity noise with two years of observation time. The inclusion of the off-diagonal correlation in the covariance of the SGWB in the data analysis pipelines will be beneficial in the quest for the SGWB signal in LVK frequency bands as well as in lower frequencies (nano-Hz, mili-Hz, deci-Hz) and in getting an insight into the origin of the SGWB signal., 14 pages, 13 figures. Prepare for submission in MNRAS

With its capacity to observe $\sim 10^{5-6}$ faint active galactic nuclei (AGN) out to redshift $z\approx 6$, Roman is poised to reveal a population of $10^{4-6}\, {\rm M_\odot}$ black holes during an epoch of vigorous galaxy assembly. By measuring the light curves of a subset of these AGN and looking for periodicity, Roman can identify several hundred massive black hole binaries (MBHBs) with 5-12 day orbital periods, which emit copious gravitational radiation and will inevitably merge on timescales of $10^{3-5}$ years. During the last few months of their merger, such binaries are observable with the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA), a joint ESA/NASA gravitational wave mission set to launch in the mid-2030s. Roman can thus find LISA precursors, provide uniquely robust constraints on the LISA source population, help identify the host galaxies of LISA mergers, and unlock the potential of multi-messenger astrophysics with massive black hole binaries., White Paper for the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope's Core Community Surveys (https://roman.gsfc.nasa.gov/science/ccs_white_papers.html)

In this paper, we investigate an extension of standard $\Lambda$CDM model by allowing: a temporal evolution in the equation of state (EoS) of DM via Chevallier-Polarski-Linder parametrization, and the constant non-null sound speed. We also consider the properties of neutrinos, such as the effective neutrino mass and the effective number of neutrino species as free parameters. We derive the constraints on this scenario by using the data from the Planck-2018 cosmic microwave background (CMB), baryonic acoustic oscillations (BAO), the local value of the Hubble constant from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), and some large scale structure (LSS) information from the abundance of galaxy clusters. We find constraints on the EoS and sound speed of DM very close to the null value in all cases thus no significant evidence can be stated beyond the standard CDM paradigm, and we conclude that the present observational data favor DM as a pressureless fluid. In all cases, we find the tighter upper bounds on the sum of neutrino masses. The most tight upper bound is $\sum m_\nu < 0.17$ eV at 95\% CL, imposed with the addition of HST prior in the analysis. We also observe the effects of neutrino properties on the extended DM parameters and also on other parameters. We find significantly lower mean values of $\sigma_8$ in all cases which are in agreement with the LSS measurements. Thus, the well-known $\sigma_8$ tension is reconciled in the considered model., Comment: 10 pages, 4 Figure panels. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1901.07549

The Bimetric theory of gravity is an extension of General Relativity that describes a massive spin-$2$ particle in addition to the standard massless graviton. The theory is based on two dynamical metric tensors with their interactions constrained by requiring the absence of the so-called Boulware-Deser ghost. It has been realized that the quantum interactions of matter fields with gravity are bound to generate modifications to the standard Einstein-Hilbert action such as quadratic curvature terms. Such a quadratic Ricci scalar term is present in the so-called Starobinsky model which has been proven to be rather robust in its inflationary predictions. In the present article we study a generalization of the Starobinsky model within the bimetric theory and find that its inflationary behaviour stays intact while keeping all consistency requirements of the bimetric framework. The interpretation of the massive spin-2 particle as dark matter remains a viable scenario, as in standard Bigravity., 7 pages, 3 figures

Recently the international pulsar timing array collaboration has announced the first strong evidence for an isotropic gravitational wave background (GWB). We propose that rapid small oscillations (wiggles) in the Hubble parameter would trigger a resonance with the propagating gravitational waves, leaving novel signature in the GWB spectrum in the form of sharp resonance peaks. The proposed signal can appear at all frequency ranges and is common to continuous spectrum GWBs with arbitrary origin. Due to its resonant nature, the signal strength differs by a perturbation order depending on whether the GWB is primordial or not, which makes it a smoking gun for the primordial origin of the observed GWB. We show that a large part of the parameter space of such signal can be constrained by near future PTA observations, while fitting the signal template to the current NanoGrav 15yr data already hints an interesting feature near 15 nHz., 10 pages plut appendix, 4 figures

The combined study of the flaring of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) at radio wavelengths and pc-scale jet kinematics with Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) has led to the view that i) the observed flares are associated with ejections of synchrotron blobs from the core, and ii) most of the flaring would follow a one-to-one correlation with the component ejection. Recent results have provided mounting evidence that the quasi-regular component injections into the relativistic jet may not be the only cause of the flux variability. We propose that AGN flux variability and jet morphology changes can both be of deterministic nature, i.e. having a geometric/kinetic origin linked to the time-variable Doppler beaming of the jet emission as its direction changes due to precession (and nutation). The physics of the underlying jet leads to shocks, instabilities, or to ejections of plasmoids. The appearance (morphology, flux, etc.) of the jet can, however, be strongly affected and modulated by precession. We demonstrate this modulating power of precession for OJ 287. For the first time, we show that the spectral state of the Spectral Energy Distribution (SED) can be directly related to the jet's precession phase. We model the SED evolution and reproduce the precession parameters. Further, we apply our precession model to eleven prominent AGN. We show that for OJ 287 precession seems to dominate the long-term variability ($\gtrsim 1\,{\rm yr}$) of the AGN flux, SED spectral state, and jet morphology, while stochastic processes affect the variability on short timescales ($\lesssim 0.2\,{\rm yr}$)., 48 pages, 26 figures, 14 tables; published in the Astrophysical Journal

First-order phase transitions, which take place when the symmetries are predominantly broken (and masses are then generated) through radiative corrections, produce observable gravitational waves and primordial black holes. We provide a model-independent approach that is valid for large-enough supercooling to quantitatively describe these phenomena in terms of few parameters, which are computable once the model is specified. The validity of a previously-proposed approach of this sort is extended here to a larger class of theories. Among other things, we identify regions of the parameter space that correspond to the background of gravitational waves recently detected by pulsar timing arrays (NANOGrav, CPTA, EPTA, PPTA) and others that are either excluded by the observing runs of LIGO and Virgo or within the reach of future gravitational wave detectors. Furthermore, we find regions of the parameter space where primordial black holes produced by large over-densities due to such phase transitions can account for dark matter. Finally, it is shown how this model-independent approach can be applied to specific cases, including a phenomenological completion of the Standard Model with right-handed neutrinos and gauged $B-L$ undergoing radiative symmetry breaking., 32 pages, 9 figures, for the dataset see https://zenodo.org/record/8128176

Many symmetry breaking patterns in grand unified theories (GUTs) give rise to cosmic strings that eventually decay when pairs of GUT monopoles spontaneously nucleate along the string cores. These strings are known as metastable cosmic strings and have intriguing implications for particle physics and cosmology. In this article, we discuss the current status of metastable cosmic strings, with a focus on possible GUT embeddings and connections to inflation, neutrinos, and gravitational waves (GWs). The GW signal emitted by a network of metastable cosmic strings in the early universe differs, in particular, from the signal emitted by topologically stable strings by a suppression at low frequencies. Therefore, if the underlying symmetry breaking scale is close to the GUT scale, the resulting GW spectrum can be accessible at current ground-based interferometers as well as at future space-based interferometers, such as LISA, and at the same time account for the signal in the most recent pulsar timing data sets. Metastable cosmic strings thus nourish the hope that future GW observations might shed light on fundamental physics close to the GUT scale., 28 pages, 3 figures

With focus on the cosmological evolution of linear perturbations of matter and geometry, we calculate the equivalent expressions to that of the Newtonian and Synchronous gauges within the framework of Unimodular Gravity, being these two gauges commonly used and implemented in Boltzmann codes. An important aspect of our analysis is the inclusion of the energy-momentum current violation, as well as its perturbations. Moreover, for the first time we demonstrate that it is possible to fix both gauges consistently, although as it has been already noticed in previous literature, neither of them is recovered in the sense of the dynamics given in General Relativity for matter and metric fluctuations. Specifically, we show that since the unimodular constraint at the level of linear perturbations lead to only one degree of freedom of scalar modes of metric fluctuations, the dynamics in Unimodular Gravity forces to keep the anisotropic stress in the Newtonian gauge, whereas the cold dark matter comoving frame can not be set in the Synchronous gauge. The physical implications on the density contrast of cold dark matter is reviewed, and the Sachs-Wolfe effect is obtained and compared with previous results in the literature of cosmological perturbations in Unimodular Gravity., 31 pages, new references added

We perform a Bayesian analysis of NANOGrav 15yr and IPTA DR2 pulsar timing residuals and show that the recently detected stochastic gravitational-wave background (SGWB) is compatible with a SGWB produced by bubble dynamics during a cosmological first-order phase transition. The timing data suggests that the phase transition would occur around QCD confinement temperature and would have a slow rate of completion. This scenario can naturally lead to the abundant production of primordial black holes (PBHs) with solar masses. These PBHs can potentially be detected by current and advanced gravitational wave detectors LIGO-Virgo-Kagra, Einstein Telescope, Cosmic Explorer, by astrometry with GAIA and by 21-cm survey., 5 pages, 4 figures + appendices

A Hubble-induced phase transition is a natural spontaneous symmetry breaking mechanism allowing for explosive particle production in non-oscillatory models of inflation involving non-minimally coupled spectator fields. In this work, we perform a comprehensive characterisation of this type of transitions as a tachyonic Ricci-heating mechanism, significantly extending previous results in the literature. By performing $\mathcal{O}(100)$ 3+1-dimensional classical lattice simulations, we explore the parameter space of two exemplary scenarios, numerically determining the main timescales in the process. Based on these results, we formulate a set of parametric equations that offer a practical approach for determining the efficiency of the heating process, the temperature at the onset of radiation domination, and the minimum number of e-folds of inflation needed to resolve the flatness and horizon problems in specific quintessential inflation scenarios. These parametric equations eliminate the need for additional lattice simulations, providing a convenient and efficient method for evaluating these key quantities., 24 pages, 10 figures