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In this paper, we investigate the possible deviations of the cosmic distance duality relation (CDDR) using the combination of the largest SNe Ia (Pantheon) and compact radio quasar (QSO) samples through two model-independent approaches. The deviation of CDDR is written as $D_L(z)/D_A(z)(1+z)^{-2}=\eta(z)$ and $\eta(z)=e^{\tau(z)/2}$, with the parameterizations of $F_1$ ($\tau(z) = 2\epsilon_1 z$) and $F_2$ ($\tau(z) = (1+z)^{2\epsilon_2}-1$). Furthermore, in order to compare the two resulting distances, two cosmological-model-independent methods, i.e., the nearby SNe Ia method and the GP method are employed to match the two distinct data at the same redshift. Our findings indicate that, compared with the results obtained in the literature, there is an improvement in precision when the latest SNe Ia and QSO samples are used. Specially, in the framework of nearby SNe Ia method, the CDDR would be constrained at the precision of $\Delta\epsilon_{1} = 0.013$ in Model $F_1$ and $\Delta\epsilon_{2}=0.018$ in Model $F_2$. Regarding the GP method, one observes that a larger data size would produce more stringent constraints on the CDDR parameters. Therefore, accompanied by further developments in cosmological observations and the analysis methods, our analysis provides an insight into the evidence for unaccounted opacity sources at an earlier stage of the universe, or at the very least the new physics involved., Comment: Accepted by CJP, 10 pages, 9 figures

We examine the viability of cosmological solution(s) describing a unified picture of the dark side of the universe from a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) of light bosons. The energy density of the BEC, together with its quantum potential, can indeed account for such a unification, in the sense that the (dust-like) cold dark matter and the dark energy components emerge from the same source. In particular, the bulk of the dark energy can be attributed to the quantum potential, in the quantum corrected Raychaudhuri-Friedmann equation, when the `macroscopic' BEC wave-function is taken to be such that the corresponding probability density is construed as the energy density of the dusty fluid. However, there arises a purely quantum mechanical back-reaction effect, of even the visible baryons, on the effective dark energy and dark matter contents, which crucially determines the mass of the BEC. We determine the constraint on such a back-reaction, and hence on the BEC mass, from physical considerations, as well as estimate the same using recent observational data., 31 pages, 5 figures, 1 table

We investigate the inflation and reheating phenomenology in scalar-Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet theory of gravity where a scalar field non-minimally couples with the Gauss-Bonnet (GB) curvature term. Regarding the inflationary phenomenology, we find -- (1) the inflation starts with a quasi de-Sitter phase and has an exit at a finite e-fold, (2) the scalar and tensor perturbations prove to be ghost free and do not suffer from gradient instability, (3) the curvature perturbation amplitude as well as its tilt and the tensor-to-scalar ratio turn out to be simultaneously compatible with the recent Planck data for suitable values of the parameters. After the inflation ends, the scalar field starts to decay to radiation with a constant decay width. For our considered scalar potential and the GB coupling function, the model results to an analytic power law solution of the Hubble parameter and a logarithmic solution of the scalar field during the reheating era, where the exponent of the Hubble parameter determines the effective EoS parameter ($w_\mathrm{eff}$) during the same. The stability of such reheating dynamics is examined by dynamical analysis which ensures that $w_\mathrm{eff}$ can go beyond unity and reach up-to the maximum value of $\mathrm{max}(w_\mathrm{eff}) = 1.56$. The scenario with $w_\mathrm{eff} > 1$ proves to be purely due to the presence of the GB coupling function, which in turn may have important consequences on enhancing the primordial gravitational waves' amplitude observed today. The inflationary e-fold number gets further constrained by the input of the reheating stage. We finally construct the complete forms of scalar potential ($V(\phi)$) and the GB coupling ($\xi(\phi)$) function that smoothly transits from inflation to reheating, and numerically solve the Hubble parameter and the scalar field for such complete forms of $V(\phi)$ and $\xi(\phi)$., Comment: 21 pages, 12 figures. "Physics of the Dark Universe" Accepted

The rotating black holes in the quintessential dark energy correspond to three horizons: inner, outer, and quintessential horizon. The domain of outer communication is the region between outer and quintessential horizon. Here, in this work we study the photon region and shadows of the quintessential dark energy black holes when the observer stays statically in the domain of outer communication. The quintessential dark energy black holes shadow characterizes by its mass $(M)$, spin parameter $(a)$, quintessential dark energy parameter $(\omega_q)$, and normalization factor $(\gamma)$. The dark energy parameter $\omega_q$ can take values in between $-1.1, Comment: 22 pages, 10 figures, 4 Tables. Welcome for comments

Possibility of using the polarized nucleus target for testing the non-standard properties of fermionic dark matter is considered. It is assumed that the incoming dark matter scatters on the polarized nuclei in the presence of vector, axial, scalar and tensor interactions. The scalar and tensor couplings are assumed to be complex numbers. Various types of measurement settings are tested depending on the assumptions regarding dark matter polarization and measurement of the recoil nucleus spin. In particular we address the question of finding and distinguishing effects of theoretically possible scenarios in which mixed triple products among various polarization vectors, the momenta of incoming dark matter and of recoil nucleus appear in the cross section. Their presence would indicate the possibility of time reversal symmetry violation in the polarized dark matter-nucleus scattering. Our considerations are model-independent and carried out in the non-relativistic dark matter and recoiled nucleus limit., Comment: 17 pages, 10 figures

We consider a cosmological model of non-minimal derivative coupling (NMDC) to gravity with holographic effect from Bekenstein-Hawking entropy using Hubble horizon IR cutoff. Holographic parameter $c$ is constant in a range, $0 \leq c < 1$. NMDC effect allows gravitational constant to be time-varying. Definition of holographic density include time-varying part of the gravitational constant. NMDC part reduces strength of gravitational constant for $\k > 0$ and opposite for $\k < 0$. The holographic part enhances gravitational strength. We use spectral index and tensor-to-scalar ratio to test the model against CMB constraint. Number of e-folding is chosen to be $N \geq 60$. Potentials, $V = V_0 \phi^n $ with $n = 2, 4$, and $V = V_0 \exp{(-\beta \phi)}$ are considered. Combined parametric plots of $\k$ and $\phi$ show that the allowed regions of the power spectrum index and of the tensor-to-scalar ratio are not overlapping. NMDC inflation is ruled out and the holographic NMDC inflation is also ruled out for $0 < c < 1$. NMDC significantly changes major anatomy of the dynamics, i.e. it gives new late-time attractor trajectories in acceleration regions. The holographic part clearly affects pattern of trajectories. However, for the holographic part to affect shape of the acceleration region, the NMDC field must be in presence. To constrain the model at late time, variation of gravitational constant is considered. Gravitational-wave standard sirens and supernovae data give a constraint, $\dot{G}/G|_{t_0} \lesssim 3\times10^{-12} \, \text{year}^{-1}$ \cite{Zhao:2018gwk} which, for this model, results in $ 10^{-12} \, \text{year}^{-1} \, \gtrsim \, {- \kappa} \dot{\phi}\ddot{\phi}/{M^2_{\p}}\,. $ Positive $\k$ is favored and greater $c^2$ results in lifting up lower bound of $\k$., Comment: 15 pages, 2 figures, 1 table, accepted by Physics of the Dark Universe

Cosmic voids are known as underdense substructures of the cosmic web that cover a large volume of the Universe. It is known that cosmic voids contain a small number of dark matter halos, so the existence of primordial black holes (PBHs) in these secluded regions of the Universe is not unlikely. In this work, we calculate the merger rate of PBHs in dark matter halos structured in cosmic voids and determine their contribution to gravitational wave events resulting from black hole mergers recorded by the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (aLIGO)-Advanced Virgo (aVirgo) detectors. Relying on the PBH scenario, the results of our analysis indicate that about $2 \sim 3$ annual events of binary black hole mergers out of all those recorded by the aLIGO-aVirgo detectors should belong to cosmic voids. We also calculate the redshift evolution of the merger rate of PBHs in cosmic voids. The results show that the evolution of the merger rate of PBHs has minimum sensitivity to the redshift changes, which seems reasonable while considering the evolution of cosmic voids. Finally, we specify the behavior of the merger rate of PBHs as a function of their mass and fraction in cosmic voids and we estimate $\mathcal{R} (M_{PBH}, f_{PBH})$ relation, which is well compatible with our findings., 11 pages; 4 figures; References are included. Physics of the Dark Universe (2023)

Kasner cosmology is a vacuum and anisotropically expanding spacetime in the general relativity context. In this work, such a cosmological model is studied in another context, the bumblebee model, where the Lorentz symmetry is spontaneously broken. By using the bumblebee context it is possible to justify the anisotropic feature of the Kasner cosmology. Thus, the origin of the anisotropy in this cosmological model could be in the Lorentz symmetry breaking. Lastly, an application in the pre-inflationary cosmology is suggested., Comment: 7 pages. Published in Annals of Physics

We introduce NSC++, a header-only C++ library that simulates the evolution of the plasma and a decaying fluid in the early Universe. NSC++ can be used in C++ programs or called directly from python scripts without significant overhead. There is no special installation process or external dependencies. Furthermore, there are example programs that can be modified to handle several cases., Comment: 18 pages; 3 figures; 4 tables; The stable version of the library can be found at https://github.com/dkaramit/NSCpp/tree/stable. v2: Added reference; Minor corrections to text. v3: Minor corrections, matches published version

Primordial black holes are under intense scrutiny since the detection of gravitational waves from mergers of solar-mass black holes in 2015. More recently, the development of numerical tools and the precision observational data have rekindled the effort to constrain the black hole abundance in the lower mass range, that is $M < 10^{23}$g. In particular, primordial black holes of asteroid mass $M \sim 10^{17}-10^{23}\,$g may represent 100\% of dark matter. While the microlensing and stellar disruption constraints on their abundance have been relieved, Hawking radiation of these black holes seems to be the only detection (and constraining) mean. Hawking radiation constraints on primordial black holes date back to the first papers by Hawking. Black holes evaporating in the early universe may have generated the baryon asymmetry, modified big bang nucleosynthesis, distorted the cosmic microwave background, or produced cosmological backgrounds of stable particles such as photons and neutrinos. At the end of their lifetime, exploding primordial black holes would produce high energy cosmic rays that would provide invaluable access to the physics at energies up to the Planck scale. In this review, we describe the main principles of Hawking radiation, which lie at the border of general relativity, quantum mechanics and statistical physics. We then present an up-to-date status of the different constraints on primordial black holes that rely on the evaporation phenomenon, and give, where relevant, prospects for future work. In particular, non-standard black holes and emission of beyond the Standard Model degrees of freedom is currently a hot subject., 70 pages, 15 figures, invited review submitted for publication to Progress in Particle and Nuclear Physics

The Nieh-Yan modified teleparallel gravity is a model which modifies the general relativity equivalent teleparallel gravity by a coupling between the Nieh-Yan density and an axion-like field. This model predicts parity violations in the gravitational waves if the axion-like field has a non-trivial background, and more importantly it is ghost free and avoids the pathologies presented in other parity-violating gravity models. The cosmological dynamics and perturbations of the Nieh-Yan modified teleparallel gravity have been investigated in detail, but all these previous investigations rely on the symmetry requirement that in the background universe both the metric and affine connection are homogeneous and isotropic. In this paper we relax the symmetry constraint on the connection and leave it arbitrary at the beginning, after all the cosmological principle only needs the metric of the background spacetime to meet the symmetry requirement. We find a new flat universe solution for the Nieh-Yan modified teleparallel gravity, for which the background dynamics itself is unchanged but the perturbations around it present a new feature that the scalar and tensor perturbations are coupled together at the linear level. The implications of this peculiar feature in primordial perturbations from inflation are also discussed., 20 pages, 1 figures, irregular universe, teleparallel gravity

We propose a new model of scalarized neutron stars (NSs) realized by a self-interacting scalar field $\phi$ nonminimally coupled to the Ricci scalar $R$ of the form $F(\phi)R$. The scalar field has a self-interacting potential and sits at its vacuum expectation value $\phi_v$ far away from the source. Inside the NS, the dominance of a positive nonminimal coupling over a negative mass squared of the potential leads to a symmetry restoration with the central field value $\phi_c$ close to $0$. This allows the existence of scalarized NS solutions connecting $\phi_v$ with $\phi_c$ whose difference is significant, whereas the field is located in the vicinity of $\phi=\phi_v$ for weak gravitational stars. The Arnowitt-Deser-Misner mass and radius of NSs as well as the gravitational force around the NS surface can receive sizable corrections from the scalar hair, while satisfying local gravity constraints in the Solar system. Unlike the original scenario of spontaneous scalarization induced by a negative nonminimal coupling, the catastrophic instability of cosmological solutions can be avoided. We also study the cosmological dynamics from the inflationary epoch to today and show that the scalar field $\phi$ finally approaches the asymptotic value $\phi_v$ without spoiling a successful cosmological evolution. After $\phi$ starts to oscillate about the potential minimum, the same field can also be the source for cold dark matter., Comment: 20 pages, 5 figures

Direct detection experiments for light (sub-GeV) dark matter are making enormous leaps in reaching previously unexplored theory space. The need for accurate characterizations of target responses has led to a growing interplay between particle and condensed matter physics. This white paper summarizes recent progress on direct detection calculations that utilize state-of-the-art numerical tools in condensed matter physics and effective field theory techniques. These new results provide the theoretical framework for interpreting ongoing and planned experiments using electronic and collective excitations, and for optimizing future searches., Comment: contribution to Snowmass 2021; 11 pages, 3 figures

The present work deals with a dark energy model that has an oscillating scalar field potential along with a cosmological constant (CC). The oscillating part of the potential represents the contribution of a light axion field in the dark energy that has its origin in the String-Axiverse scenario. The model has been confronted with the latest cosmological observations. The results show that a sub-Planckian value of the axion field decay constant is consistent with observational data. Furthermore, in terms of the observational data considered in this work, the axion model is preferred over the $\Lambda$CDM model in terms of AIC, BIC information criteria as well as in terms of Bayesian evidence. The oscillating feature in the scalar field evolution and in the equation of state for the dark energy can be observed for the allowed parameters space. It is also observed that cluster number counts in this axion model are suppressed compared to the $\Lambda$CDM and this suppression is enhanced for the sub-Planckian values for the axion decay constant., Comment: 16 pages, LateX style. Revised Version with new data analysis. Some previous results have been strengthened

We search for a linearity in the ratio of dark matter to baryonic matter as a function of radius for galaxy clusters, motivated by a recent result by Lovas (arXiv:2206.11431), who has discovered such a linearity for a diverse suite of galaxies in the SPARC sample. For our analysis, we used a sample of 54 non-cool core clusters from the HIFLUGCS sample. We do not find any evidence for a linear trend in the aforementioned ratio as a function of radius for individual clusters. We then repeat this analysis for the stacked sample, which also does not show this linearity. Therefore, the linear scaling found by Lovas is not a universal property of dark matter haloes at all scales., 7 pages, 3 figures. Accepted for publication in Phys. Dark Universe

In this work, we analyse the late-time evolution of the universe for a particular $f(R)$ gravity model built from an exponential function of the scalar curvature. Following the literature, we write the field equations in terms of a suited statefinder function ($y_H(z)$) and considering well motivated physical initial conditions, the resulting equations are solved numerically. Also, the cosmological parameters $w_{\rm{DE}}$, $w_{\rm{eff}}$, $\Omega_{\rm{DE}}$ and $H(z)$ and the statefinder quantities $q$, $j$, $s$ and $Om(z)$ are explicitly expressed in terms of $y_H(z)$ and its derivatives. Furthermore, setting an appropriate set of values for the model parameters, the cosmological parameters as well as the statefinder quantities are plotted, and their present values (at $z=0$), are shown to be compatible with Planck 2018 observations and the $\Lambda$CDM-model values. Considering updated measurements from the dynamics of the expansion of the universe, $H(z)$, we perform an statistical analysis to constrain the free parameters of the model, finding a particular set of values that fit the data well and predict acceptable values for the cosmological and statefinder parameters at present time. Therefore, the $f(R)$ gravity model is found to be consistent with the considered observational data, and a viable alternative to explain the late-time acceleration of the universe., Comment: 23 pages, 16 figures. References added. Minor modifications, conclusions unchanged. Accepted for publication in Physics of the Dark Universe. Matched accepted version

Recent observations of Type Ia supernovae (SNe) by SH0ES collaboration (R11 and R16) diverge from the value reported by recent CMBR observations utilising the Planck satellite and application of the $\Lambda CDM$ cosmological model by at least $3 \sigma$. It is among the most challenging problems in contemporary cosmology and is known as the Hubble tension. The SNe Ia in R11 and R16 were calibrated through cepheid variables in three distinct galaxies: Milky Way, LMC, and NGC4258. Carnegie Hubble Program (CHP) observations of type Ia SNe calibrated using the tip of the red giant approach yielded a somewhat different estimate for the Hubble constant. This decreased the Hubble tension from over 3$\sigma$ to below 2$\sigma$. It is a legitimate question to answer whether there are any issues with SNe Ia calibration and to investigate whether the Hubble tension is real or not. We use statistical techniques namely, ANOVA, K-S test, and t-test to examine whether the cepheid calibration is host-dependent. Our analysis shows that (i) both R11 and R16 data suffer from non-Gaussian systematic effects, (ii) $H_0$ values in the sub-samples (different anchor-based) in both R11 and R16 groups are significantly different at a 99\% confidence level, and (iii) neglecting the metal-rich MW sample does not reduce the $H_0$ value significantly, and thus Hubble tension persists. A small reduction in the Hubble constant could be linked to the differences in the host environment. Hence instead of using a single universal relation environment based slope and zero point should be preferred., Comment: 15 pages (single column), 7 figures

Dark matter in the form of axions is expected to form miniclusters, and their dense regions can harbor compact axion stars. Such axion stars could be discovered by microlensing events. In particular, some candidate events reported by Subaru HSC and OGLE can be explained simultaneously if the axion stars with masses of the order of the Earth mass make up about $\sim27^{+7}_{013}$ percent of dark matter. For QCD axions, this corresponds to the axion mass in the range $10^{-9}-10^{-6}$ eV, which is consistent with the experimental constraints, as well as the cosmological anthropic window of parameters., 8 pages, 2 figures; latest version for the publication in Physics Letters B

We look at dark energy from a biology inspired viewpoint by means of the Approximate Bayesian Computation (ABC) and late time cosmological observations. We find that dynamical dark energy comes out on top, or in the ABC language naturally selected, over the standard $\Lambda$CDM cosmological scenario. We confirm this conclusion is robust to whether baryon acoustic oscillations and Hubble constant priors are considered. Our results show that the algorithm prefers low values of the Hubble constant, consistent or at least a few standard deviation away from the cosmic microwave background estimate, regardless of the priors taken initially in each model. This supports the result of the traditional MCMC analysis and could be viewed as strengthening evidence for dynamical dark energy being a more favorable model of late time cosmology., Comment: 24 pages, 14 figures, 4 tables, v2: ABC algo details and references added, accepted in Phys. Dark Universe, our codes https://github.com/reggiebernardo/notebooks/tree/main/supp_ntbks_arxiv.2211.05482

I present a model of inflation and dark energy in which the inflaton potential is constructed by imposing that a scalar field representing the classical energy of the spacetime foam inside the Hubble horizon is an exact solution to the cosmological equations. The resulting potential has the right properties to describe both the early and late expansion epochs of the universe in a unified picture., Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures. Published version

The existence of ultralight axion (ULA) with mass $\mathcal{O}( 10^{-26}\text{eV})$ is not favored by the CMB observations in the standard $\Lambda$CDM model. We show that the inclusion of early dark energy (EDE) will lift the CMB-lockdown on such ULA, and possibly other forms of dark matter beyond cold dark matter. By performing Monte Carlo Markov Chain analysis, it is found that, as opposed to $\Lambda$CDM, the AdS-EDE cosmology (with an Anti-de Sitter phase around recombination) now allows the existence of axion with mass $10^{-26}$ eV and predicts $6\%$ of the matter in our Universe to be such ULA, which can also help alleviating the $S_8$ tension in EDE., Comment: 13 pages + appendix, 10 figures; matched accepted version in plb

By arranging the control parameters, we examine whether the mass varying neutrino model PRD 103, 063540 (2021), enabling one to unify inflation with the present dark energy, can be used for producing an early dark energy. The model works in the following way. At early stages of the Big-Bang, the inflaton trapped in the minimum at $\phi = 0$ gets uplifted due to interaction with neutrinos and starts to roll down to one of the degenerate minima of the effective potential and after a while gets anchored at this minimum, which in turn evolves in time very slowly. Correspondingly, the early dark energy taking place as a result of this dynamical symmetry breaking also varies in time very slowly. Shortly before the recombination epoch, however, the symmetry is restored and early dark energy disappears. A typical problem of the mass varying neutrino models is that they can hardly provide the needed amount of early dark energy at the tree-level because of smallness of neutrino masses. Nevertheless, the quantum fluctuations of $\phi$ can do the job in providing sufficient early dark energy under assumption that inflationary energy scale is of the order of $1$\,TeV. Radiative as well as thermal corrections coming from the neutrino sector do not affect the model significantly. As for the gravity induced corrections to the effective potential - they can be safely ignored., Comment: 8 pages

Recent work, using an effective field theory framework, has shown the number of possible couplings between nucleons and the dark-matter-candidate Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) is larger than previously thought. Inspired by an existing Mathematica script that computes the target response, we have developed a fast, modern Fortran code, including optional OpenMP parallelization, along with a user-friendly Python wrapper, to swiftly and efficiently explore many scenarios, with output aligned with practices of current dark matter searches. A library of most of the important target nuclides is included; users may also import their own nuclear structure data, in the form of reduced one-body density matrices. The main output is the differential event rate as a function of recoil energy, needed for modeling detector response rates, but intermediate results such as nuclear form factors can be readily accessed., Comment: 15 pages, 6 figures, preprint submitted to Computer Physics Communications, code available at https://github.com/ogorton/dmscatter, version 2 updated with additional references

We investigate production of primordial black holes from first-order electroweak phase transition in the framework of the nearly aligned Higgs effective field theory, in which non-decoupling quantum effects are properly described. Since the mass of such primordial black holes is evaluated to be about $10^{-5}$ of the solar mass, current and future microlensing observations such as Subaru HSC, OGLE, PRIME and Roman Space Telescope may be able to probe the electroweak phase transition. We study parameter regions where primordial black holes can be produced by the first-order electroweak phase transition, and explore their detectability at these observations. Complementarity of primordial black hole observations, gravitational wave observations and collider experiments is also discussed for testing the nature of the electroweak phase transition., Comment: 19 pages, 6 figures

In this work we present updated forecasts on parameterised modifications of gravity that can capture deviations of the behaviour of cosmological density perturbations beyond $\Lambda$CDM. For these forecasts we adopt the SKA Observatory (SKAO) as a benchmark for future cosmological surveys at radio frequencies, combining a continuum survey for weak lensing and angular galaxy clustering with an HI galaxy survey for spectroscopic galaxy clustering that can detect baryon acoustic oscillations and redshift space distortions. Moreover, we also add 21cm HI intensity mapping, which provides invaluable information at higher redshifts, and can complement tomographic resolution, thus allowing us to probe redshift-dependent deviations of modified gravity models. For some of these cases, we combine the probes with other optical surveys, such as the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) and the Vera C. Rubin Observatory (VRO). We show that such synergies are powerful tools to remove systematic effects and degeneracies in the non-linear and small-scale modelling of the observables. Overall, we find that the combination of all SKAO radio probes will have the ability to constrain the present value of the functions parameterising deviations from $\Lambda$CDM ($\mu$ and $\Sigma$) with a precision of $2.7\%$ and $1.8\%$ respectively, competitive with the constraints expected from optical surveys and with constraints we have on gravitational interactions in the standard model. Exploring the radio-optical synergies, we find that the combination of VRO with SKAO can yield extremely tight constraints on $\mu$ and $\Sigma$ ($0.9\%$ and $0.7\%$ respectively), which are further improved when the cross-correlation between intensity mapping and DESI galaxies is included., Comment: 24 pages, 10 figures

The Local Group (LG) of galaxies, modeled as a two body problem, is sensitive to cosmological contributions like those related to the presence of a cosmological constant $\Lambda$ into dynamics. Here we study the LG dynamics in the context of Extended Theories of Gravity like $f(R)$ gravity considered as dark energy and dark matter contributions. In the first approach, we perturb the dark energy effect considering a Yukawa-like interaction that naturally emerges from $f(R)$ gravity in the weak field limit. We assume the mass of LG from simulations and, from this, derive constraints on the Yukawa couplings: $\alpha < 0.581$ and $m_{grav} < 5.095 \cdot 10^{-26} \, eV/c^2$. In the second part, considering a minimal extension of General Relativity, i.e. $f(R) \sim R^{1+\epsilon}$, with $|\epsilon|\ll 1$, we investigate the possibility that it replaces dark matter as a MOND-like theory. We find that there is a value of the parameter $\beta$ (derived starting from $\epsilon$) which gives a minimal value for the LG mass. Moreover, this particular potential allows to calculate the ratio of dark matter and baryonic matter for the LG to be. We show that this ratio could falsify MOND-like theories., Comment: Accepted in Phys Of The Dark Univ

We examine astronomical observations that would be achievable over a future timeline corresponding to the documented history of human civilization so far, $\sim 10^4$ years. We examine implications for measurements of the redshift drift, evolution of the CMB, and cosmic parallax. A number of events that are rare on the scale of centuries will become easily observable on a timescale $\sim 10^4$ years. Implications for several measurements related to gravity are discussed., Comment: 4 pages, no figures, references updated and typos corrected

The increasingly large amount of cosmological data coming from ground-based and space-borne telescopes requires highly efficient and fast enough data analysis techniques to maximise the scientific exploitation. In this work, we explore the capabilities of supervised machine learning algorithms to learn the properties of the large-scale structure of the Universe, aiming at constraining the matter density parameter, Omega m. We implement a new Artificial Neural Network for a regression data analysis, and train it on a large set of galaxy two-point correlation functions in standard cosmologies with different values of Omega m. The training set is constructed from log-normal mock catalogues which reproduce the clustering of the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) galaxies. The presented statistical method requires no specific analytical model to construct the likelihood function, and runs with negligible computational cost, after training. We test this new Artificial Neural Network on real BOSS data, finding Omega m=0.309p/m0.008, which is remarkably consistent with standard analysis results., Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, submitted to A&A, Code available at this https URL: https://colab.research.google.com/drive/1zVxY9G5N9SNbsdjNHztVNpEhcTa6DBfu?usp=sharing

We investigate the co-evolution of dark matter (DM) density perturbation and metric perturbation in the WIMP paradigm. Instead of adopting the conventional assumption that DM starts out in thermal equilibrium, we propose a simple phase of DM production for the WIMP paradigm and extend our analysis to this phase. Being free from the envelop of thermal equilibrium, an amplified perturbative resonance between DM density perturbation and scalar modes of metric perturbation takes place during the DM production phase, and consequently results in a suppression of the tensor-to-scalar ratio of metric perturbation. By specifying the cosmic background with a typical realization of cosmic reheating, we establish a relation between DM particle mass $m_\chi$ and the tensor-to-scalar ratio $r$ in the WIMP paradigm, which also contains two reheating parameters, the reheating temperature $T_{R_f}$ and the dissipative constant $\Gamma_0$. Notably, for a sizeable parameter region of WIMP candidate and cosmic reheating, this relation predicts a smaller value of $r$ in comparing with the conventional expectation obtained by assuming DM starts out in thermal equilibrium. Once the suppression of $r$ is measured in future observations of primordial gravitational wave in CMB, this relation can be used to constrain $m_\chi$, $T_{R_f}$ and $\Gamma_0$ in principle., Comment: 21 pages, 7 figures

Gravitational waves (GWs) originated from mergers of stellar-mass binary black holes (SBBHs) are considered as dark sirens in cosmology since they usually do not have electromagnetic counterparts. In order to study cosmos with these events, we not only need the luminosity distances extracted from GW signals, but also require the redshift information of sources via, say, matching GW sky localization with galaxy catalogs. Based on such a methodology, we explore how well decihertz GW detectors, DO-Optimal and DECIGO, can constrain cosmological parameters. Using Monte-Carlo simulated dark sirens, we find that DO-Optimal can constrain the Hubble parameter to ${\sigma_{H_0}} / {H_0}\, \lesssim 0.23\%$ when estimating $H_0$ alone, while DECIGO performs better by a factor of 5 with ${\sigma_{H_0}} / {H_0}\lesssim 0.043\%$. Such a good precision of $H_0$ will shed light on the $H_0$ tension. For multiple-parameter estimation, DECIGO can still reach a level of relative uncertainty smaller than $7\%$. The reason why decihertz detectors perform well is explained by their large numbers of SBBH GW events with good distance and angular resolution., Comment: 14 pages, 8 figures, update to match published version

We present a meshless method for magnetohydrodynamics by evolving the vector potential of magnetic fields. A novel scheme and numerical techniques are developed to restrict the divergence of magnetic field, based on the Meshless Finite Mass/Volume with HLLD Riemann solver for conservative flux calculation. We found the magnetic field could be stabilized by a proper smoothing process and so the long-term evolution becomes available. To verify the new scheme, we perform the Brio-Wu shock tube, 2D and 3D Orszag-Tang vortex and Magnetorotational Instability test problems. Our results suggest that our method is robust and has better precision on central offset, amplitude and detailed pattern than an existing meshless code$-$GIZMO., 17 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in Journal of Computational Physics

A recent study established a correspondence between the Generalized Uncertainty Principle (GUP) and Modified theories of gravity, particularly Stelle gravity. We investigate the consequences of this correspondence for inflation and cosmological observables by evaluating the power spectrum of the scalar and tensor perturbations using two distinct methods. First, we employ PLANCK observations to determine the GUP parameter γ0. Then, we use the value of γ0 to investigate the implications of quantum gravity on the power spectrum of primordial gravitational waves and their possible detectability in the next-generation detectors, like Einstein Telescope and Cosmic explorer.

Hot new early dark energy describes a supercooled, first-order phase transition that takes place at sub-eV temperatures in the dark sector. It lowers the sound horizon, which provides a possible solution to the Hubble tension, and, at the same time, it can explain the neutrino masses through the inverse seesaw mechanism by making a set of sterile Majorana fermions massive. First, we argue that this scenario strengthens existing cosmological bounds on the heaviest neutrino mass. This, in turn, constrains the dark sector temperature, which provides us in total with two falsifiable predictions. In a second step, we discuss the phenomenological consequences of embedding hot new early dark energy in a larger gauge group that is partially broken above the TeV scale. This novel theory, which could even be motivated independently of the Hubble tension, completes the high-energy corner of the inverse seesaw mechanism and explains the mass of a dark matter candidate that can be produced through gravitational interactions at high energies., 10 pages, 1 figure, v3: matches published version; added detailed discussion of model's signatures and figure with constraints on heaviest neutrino mass

Recently, a covariant formulation of non-equilibrium phenomena in the context of General Relativity was proposed in order to explain from first principles the observed accelerated expansion of the Universe, without the need for a cosmological constant, leading to the GREA theory. Here, we confront the GREA theory against the latest cosmological data, including type Ia supernovae, baryon acoustic oscillations, the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation, Hubble rate data from the cosmic chronometers and the recent $H_0$ measurements. We perform Markov Chain Monte Carlo analyses and a Bayesian model comparison, by estimating the evidence via thermodynamic integration, and find that when all the aforementioned data are included, but no prior on $H_0$, the difference in the log-evidence is $\sim -9$ in favor of GREA, thus resulting in overwhelming support for the latter over the cosmological constant and cold dark matter model ($\Lambda$CDM). When we also include priors on $H_0$, either from Cepheids or the Tip of the Red Giant Branch measurements, then due to the tensions with CMB data the GREA theory is found to be statistically equivalent with $\Lambda$CDM., Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures, 6 tables. Changes match published version

In this paper, we investigated the theoretical and cosmological effects of the matter Lagrangian degeneracy in an extension of the Symmetric Teleparallel Equivalent of General Relativity, denoted as $f (Q, T )$ gravity. This degeneracy comes from the fact that both $\mathcal{L}_m = p$ and $\mathcal{L}_m = -\rho$ can give rise to the stress-energy tensor of a perfect fluid. The $f(Q,T)$ equations depend on the form of the matter Lagrangian and hence they also have a degeneracy that has influence on the density evolution of dust matter and radiation, on the form of the generalized Friedmann equations and also shows changes in the cosmological parameters confidence regions when performing Monte Carlo Markov Chains analyses. Our results suggest that since changing the matter Lagrangian causes different theoretical and cosmological results, future studies in $f(Q,T)$ gravity should consider both forms of the matter Lagrangians to account for the different mathematical and observational results., Comment: Accepted for publication in Physics of the Dark Universe

It is commonly assumed that the Lagrangian of multi-field theories of gravity contains the sum of kinetic terms of scalar fields. However, we propose here the Lagrangian contains not the sum but the quotient of kinetic terms. With this novel change, we find the inflationary universe can be acquired with two scalars without the slow-roll approximation. On the other hand, a constant dark energy density can also be achieved with two scalars while without the need of Einstein cosmological constant., Comment: 10 pages, references added

We study the cosmological inflation within the context of f(Q, T) gravity, wherein Q is the nonmetricity scalar and T is the trace of the matter energy-momentum tensor. By choosing a linear combination of Q and T, we first analyze the realization of an inflationary scenario driven via the geometrical effects of the linear f(Q, T) gravity and then, we obtain the modified slow-roll parameters, the scalar and the tensor spectral indices, and the tensor-to-scalar ratio for the proposed model. In addition, by choosing three inflationary potentials, i.e. the power-law, hyperbolic and natural potentials, and by applying the slow-roll approximations, we calculate these inflationary observables in the presence of an inflaton scalar field. The results indicate that by properly restricting the free parameters, the proposed model provides appropriate predictions that are consistent with the observational data obtained from the Planck 2018. Also, we specify that the contribution of linear model of f(Q, T) gravity with the hyperbolic and natural potentials can impose different restrictions on the parameters of these potentials. Furthermore, the predictions of natural inflation in this model are in good agreement with the joint Planck, BK15 and BAO data, justifying the use of the f(Q, T) gravity., revised 18 pages, a few figures, references added

The consideration of the holographic dark energy approach and matter creation effects in a single cosmological model is carried out in this work accordingly, we discuss some cases of interest. We test this cosmological proposal against recent observations. Considering the best fit values obtained for the free cosmological parameters, the model exhibits a transition from a decelerated cosmic expansion to an accelerated one. The deceleration-acceleration transition can not be determined consistently from the coincidence parameter for this kind of model. At effective level the parameter state associated to the whole energy density contribution describes a quintessence scenario in the fluid analogy at present time., 9 pages, 7 figures. Accepted for publication in Physics of the Dark Universe

We report a novel prediction from single-field inflation that even a tiny step in the inflaton potential can change our perception of primordial non-Gaussianities of the curvature perturbation. Our analysis focuses on the tail of probability distribution generated by an upward step transition between two stages of slow-roll evolution. The nontrivial background dynamics with off-attractor behavior is identified. By using a non-perturbative $\delta N$ analysis, we explicitly show that a highly non-Gaussian tail can be generated by a tiny upward step, even when the conventional nonlinearity parameters $f_{NL}$, $g_{NL}$, etc. remain small. With this example, we demonstrate for the first time the sensitive dependence of non-perturbative effects on the tail of probability distribution. Our scenario has an inconceivable application to primordial black holes by either significantly boosting their abundance or completely forbidding their appearance., Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures

We consider a cosmological model consisting of two scalar fields defined in the hyperbolic plane known as hyperbolic inflation. For the background space, we consider a homogeneous and isotropic spacetime with nonzero curvature. We study the asymptotic behaviour of solutions and we search for attractors in the expanding regime. We prove that two hyperbolic inflationary stages are stable solutions that can solve the flatness problem and describe acceleration for both open and closed models, and additionally we obtain a Milne-like attractor solution for the open model. We also investigate the contracting branch obtaining mirror solutions with the opposite dynamical behaviours., 13 pages. Major revision. One calculation error was amended

In this work we examine the effects of a pre-inflationary de Sitter bounce on the energy spectrum of the primordial gravitational waves. Specifically we assume that the Universe is described by several evolution patches, starting with a de Sitter pre-inflationary bounce which is followed by an quasi-de Sitter slow-roll inflationary era, followed by a constant equation of state parameter abnormal reheating era, which is followed by the radiation and matter domination eras and the late-time acceleration eras. The bounce and the inflationary era can be realized by vacuum $f(R)$ gravity and the abnormal reheating and the late-time acceleration eras by the synergy of $f(R)$ gravity and the prefect matter fluids present. Using well-known reconstruction techniques we find which $f(R)$ gravity can realize each evolution patch, except from the matter and radiation domination eras which are realized by the corresponding matter fluids. Accordingly, we calculate the damping factor of the primordial de Sitter bounce, and as we show, the signal can be detected by only one gravitational wave future experiment, in contrast to the case in which the bounce is absent. We discuss in detail the consequences of our results and the future perspectives., Comment: Nuclear Physics B in press. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2209.09781

The quantum-mechanical solution to the problem of radiative recombination of an electron in a Coulomb field, obtained in the approximation of the smallness of the electron coupling with the radiation field, has been known for a long time. However, in astrophysics, the classical approach, which does not explicitly use this smallness, is sometimes used to describe similar processes in systems of magnetic monopoles or self-interacting dark matter particles. The importance of such problems is determined by the fact that recombination processes play a crucial role in the evolution of the large-scale structure of the Universe. Therefore, of particular interest is the fact that the classical and quantum expressions for the recombination cross section differ significantly in magnitude. It is shown that the applicability of quantum and classical approaches to radiative recombination is closely related to the radiated angular momentum and its quantization. For situations where the classical approach is not suitable, a semi-classical approach based on the angular momentum quantization is proposed, in some respects an alternative to the well-known semi-classical Kramers' approach.

In this paper we consider the parity violating gravity model within the framework of teleparallel gravity. The parity violations are caused by the couplings of a scalar field to the scalar invariants which are parity-odd and quadratic in the torsion tensor. Totally there are two such type independent invariants, and one of them is the Nieh-Yan density. Through investigations on the cosmological perturbations of this model, we find that in general it suffers from the difficulties of ghost instability in the scalar and vector perturbations. But in the special case only the coupling to the Nieh-Yan density exists, this model is ghost free and reduces to the Nieh-Yan modified Teleparallel Gravity model. We also analyze the severity of the ghost instability by studying the perturbations around the Minkowski background., Comment: 11 pages, 0 figure, teleparallel gravity, parity violation

In the present article we showcase how the reheating era can be described properly in the context of Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet gravity assuming that the primordial gravitational waves propagate with the velocity of light. The equations of the duration of reheating along with the reheating temperature are derived and as demonstrated, their expressions are quite similar to the case of a canonical scalar field where now the second derivative of the Gauss-Bonnet scalar coupling function appears and effectively alters the numerical value of the scalar potential. The appearance of such term is reminiscing of a $\lambda R$ model of gravity where $\lambda$ is now dynamical. We consider two viable inflationary models of interest, the former involves an error function as scalar Gauss-Bonnet coupling function and the latter a Woods-Saxon scalar potential. It is shown that for both models the aforementioned quantities can be in agreement with theoretical expectations. The only constraint that is needed is the assumption that the second time derivative of the Gauss-Bonnet scalar coupling function is actually lesser than the Planck mass squared, that is $\ddot\xi, Comment: NPB Accepted

The recent observational evidence for cosmic filament spin on megaparsec scales (Wang et al, Nature Astronomy 5, 839-845 (2021)) demands an explanation in the physics of dark matter. Conventional collisionless cold particle dark matter is conjectured to generate cosmic filament spin through tidal torquing, but this explanation requires extrapolating from the quasi-linear regime to the non-linear regime. Meanwhile no alternative explanation exists in the context of ultra-light (e.g., axion) dark matter, and indeed these models would naively predict zero spin for cosmic filaments. In this Letter we study cosmic filament spin in theories of ultra-light dark matter, such as ultra-light axions, and bosonic and fermionic condensates, such as superfluids and superconductors. These models are distinguished from conventional particle dark matter models by the possibility of dark matter vortices. We take a model agnostic approach, and demonstrate that a collection of dark vortices can explain the data reported in Wang et al. Modeling a collection of vortices with a simple two-parameter analytic model, corresponding to an averaging of the velocity field, we find an excellent fit to the data. We perform a Markov Chain Monte Carlo analysis and find constraints on the number of vortices, the dark matter mass, and the radius of the inner core region where the vortices are distributed, in order for ultra-light dark matter to explain spinning cosmic filaments.

Sterile neutrinos can be produced in the early universe via interactions with their active counterparts. For small active-sterile mixing angles, thermal equilibrium with the standard model plasma is not reached and sterile neutrinos are only produced via flavor oscillations. We study in detail this regime, taking into account matter potentials and decoherence effects caused by elastic scatterings with the plasma. We find that resonant oscillations occurring at temperatures $T\lesssim 10\,\mathrm{GeV}$ lead to a significant enhancement of the sterile neutrino production rate. Taking this into account, we improve constraints on the active-sterile mixing from Big Bang nucleosynthesis and the cosmic microwave background, excluding mixing angles down to $\theta_s\sim 10^{-10}-10^{-16}$ for sterile neutrino masses in the $10\,\mathrm{MeV}$ to $10\,\mathrm{GeV}$ range. We observe that if sterile neutrinos predominantly decay into metastable hidden sector particles, this process provides a novel dark matter production mechanism, consistent with the sterile neutrino origin of light neutrino masses via the seesaw mechanism., Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures

We investigate a cosmological scenario in which the dark matter particles can be created during the evolution of the Universe. By regarding the Universe as an open thermodynamic system and using non-equilibrium thermodynamics, we examine the mechanism of gravitational particle production. In this setup, we study the large-scale structure (LSS) formation of the Universe in the Newtonian regime of perturbations and derive the equations governing the evolution of the dark matter overdensities. Then, we implement the cosmological data from Planck 2018 CMB measurements, SNe Ia and BAO observations, as well as the Riess et al. (2019) local measurement for $H_0$ to provide some cosmological constraints for the parameters of our model. We see that the best case of our scenario ($\chi_{{\rm tot}}^{2}=3834.40$) fits the observational data better than the baseline $\Lambda$CDM model ($\chi_{{\rm tot}}^{2} = 3838.00$) at the background level. We moreover estimate the growth factor of linear perturbations and show that the best case of our model ($\chi_{f\sigma_{8}}^{2}=39.85$) fits the LSS data significantly better than the $\Lambda$CDM model ($\chi_{f\sigma_{8}}^{2}=45.29$). Consequently, our model also makes a better performance at the level of the linear perturbations compared to the standard cosmological model., Comment: 30 pages, 8 figures

The logotropic model [P.H. Chavanis, Eur. Phys. J. Plus {\bf 130}, 130 (2015)] may be an interesting alternative to the $\Lambda$CDM model. It is able to account for the present accelerating expansion of the universe while solving at the same time the core-cusp problem of the CDM model. In the logotropic model, there is a single dark fluid. Its rest-mass plays the role of dark matter and its internal energy plays the role of dark energy. We highlight two remarkable predictions of the logotropic model. It yields cored dark matter halos with a universal surface density equal to $\Sigma_0^{\rm th}=0.01955 c\sqrt{\Lambda}/G=133\, M_{\odot}/{\rm pc}^2$ without free parameter in very good agreement with the observational value $\Sigma_0^{\rm obs}=141_{-52}^{+83}\, M_{\odot}/{\rm pc}^2$. It also predicts the present ratio of dark energy and dark matter to be the pure number $\Omega_{\rm de,0}^{\rm th}/\Omega_{\rm dm,0}^{\rm th}=e=2.71828...$ in very good agreement with the observations giving $\Omega_{\rm de,0}^{\rm obs}/\Omega_{\rm dm,0}^{\rm obs}=2.669\pm 0.08$. Using the measured present proportion of baryonic matter $\Omega_{\rm b,0}^{\rm obs}=0.0486\pm 0.0010$, we find that the values of the present proportion of dark matter and dark energy are $\Omega_{\rm dm,0}^{\rm th}=\frac{1}{1+e}(1-\Omega_{\rm b,0})=0.2559$ and $\Omega_{\rm de,0}^{\rm th}=\frac{e}{1+e}(1-\Omega_{\rm b,0})=0.6955$ in very good agreement with the observational values $\Omega_{\rm dm,0}^{\rm obs}=0.2589\pm 0.0057$ and $\Omega_{\rm de,0}^{\rm obs}=0.6911\pm 0.0062$ within the error bars. These theoretical predictions are obtained by advocating a mysterious strong cosmic coincidence (dubbed "dark magic") implying that our epoch plays a particular role in the history of the universe., Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2109.05963

Stochastic gravitational waves can be induced from the primordial curvature perturbations generated during inflation, through scalar-tensor mode coupling at the second order of cosmological perturbation theory. Here we discuss a model of warm inflation in which large curvature perturbations are generated at the small scales because of inflaton dissipation. These overdense perturbations then collapse at later epoch to form primordial black holes, as was studied in our earlier work (Ref. \cite{Arya:2019wck}), and therefore may also act as a source to the second-order tensor perturbations. In this study, we calculate the spectrum of these secondary gravitational waves from our warm inflationary model. We find that our model leads to a generation of scalar induced gravitational waves (SIGW) over a frequency range ($1-10^6$) Hz. Further, we discuss the detection possibilities of these SIGWs, taking in account the sensitivity of different ongoing and future gravitational wave experiments., Comment: 16 pages, 4 figures. Comments and suggestions are welcome

We combine cosmic chronometer and growth of structure data to derive the redshift evolution of the dark energy equation of state $w$, using a novel agnostic approach. The background and perturbation equations lead to two expressions for $w$, one purely background-based and the other relying also on the growth rate of large-scale structure. We compare the features and performance of the growth-based $w$ to the background $w$, using Gaussian Processes for the reconstructions. We find that current data is not precise enough for robust reconstruction of the two forms of $w$. By using mock data expected from next-generation surveys, we show that the reconstructions will be robust enough and that the growth-based $w$ will out-perform the background $w$. Furthermore, any disagreement between the two forms of $w$ will provide a new test for deviations from the standard model of cosmology., Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures. Version accepted in Physics of the Dark Universe