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Magnetowave induced plasma wakefield acceleration (MPWA) in a relativistic astrophysical outflow has been proposed as a viable mechanism for the acceleration of cosmic particles to ultra high energies. Here we present simulation results that demonstrate the viability of this mechanism. We invoke the high frequency and high speed whistler mode for the driving pulse. The plasma wakefield so induced validates precisely the theoretical prediction. This mechanism is shown capable of accelerating charged particles to ZeV energies in Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN)., Comment: Talk presented by G.-L. Lin at Challenges in Particle Astrophysics, XXth RENCONTRES DE BLOIS,18th-23rd May 2008

It is well-known that the universe was in a plasma state both before decoupling and after reionization. However, the conventional wisdom has been that the plasma effects are largely Debye-shielded and can thus be safely ignored when considering large scale evolutions. Recently we showed that large scale structure formation in the universe may actually be suppressed by the plasma collective effect. Indeed, observational data indicate that the conventional theoretical formula tends to overestimate the matter power spectrum at scales $k>1h{\rm Mpc}^{-1}$. In this paper, we further develop our theory through a more thorough and general derivation of the Maxwell-Einstein-Boltzmann equation. In addition to baryon density perturbation post reionization, we apply this general formulation to investigate the possible plasma effect on CMB anisotropy. As expected, while the plasma effect does render an observable effect to the former, its impact on the latter is totally negligible., Comment: 8 pages, no figure

We propose a new approach to the consistency test of dark energy models with observations. To test a category of dark energy models, we suggest introducing a characteristic Q(z) that in general varies with the redshift z but in those models plays the role of a (constant) distinct parameter. Then, by reconstructing dQ(z)/dz from observational data and comparing it with zero we can assess the consistency between data and the models under consideration. For a category of models that passes the test, we can further constrain the distinct parameter of those models by reconstructing Q(z) from data. For demonstration, in this paper we concentrate on quintessence. In particular we examine the exponential potential and the power-law potential via a widely used parametrization of the dark energy equation of state, w(z) = w_0 + w_a z/(1+z), for data analysis. This method of the consistency test is particularly efficient because for all models we invoke the constraint of only a single parameter space that by choice can be easily accessed. The general principle of our approach is not limited to dark energy. It may also be applied to the testing of various cosmological models and even the models in other fields beyond the scope of cosmology., Comment: 19 pages, 5 figures

There has been the suggestion that the cosmological constant as implied by the dark energy is related to the well-known hierarchy between the Planck scale, $M_{\rm Pl}$, and the Standard Model scale, $M_{\rm SM}$. Here we further propose that the same framework that addresses this hierarchy problem must also address the smallness problem of the cosmological constant. Specifically, we investigate the minimal supersymmetric (SUSY) extension of the Randall-Sundrum model where SUSY-breaking is induced on the TeV brane and transmitted into the bulk. We show that the Casimir energy density of the system indeed conforms with the observed dark energy scale.

Magnetowave induced plasma wakefield acceleration (MPWA) in a relativistic astrophysical outflow has been proposed as a viable mechanism for the acceleration of cosmic particles to ultra high energies. Here we present simulation results that clearly demonstrate the viability of this mechanism for the first time. We invoke the high frequency and high speed whistler mode for the driving pulse. The plasma wakefield so induced validates precisely the theoretical prediction. We show that under appropriate conditions, the plasma wakefield maintains very high coherence and can sustain high-gradient acceleration over a macroscopic distance. Invoking gamma ray burst (GRB) as the source, we show that MPWA production of ultra high energy cosmic rays (UHECR) beyond ZeV 10^21 eV is possible., Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures

We point out that during the reionization epoch of the cosmic history, the plasma collective effect among the ordinary matter would suppress the large scale structure formation. The imperfect Debye shielding at finite temperature would induce a residual long-range electrostatic potential which, working together with the baryon thermal pressure, would counter the gravitational collapse. As a result the effective Jean's length, $\tilde{\lambda}_J$, is increased by a factor, $\tilde{\lambda}_J/\lambda_J=\sqrt{8/5}$, relative to the conventional one. For scales smaller than the effective Jean's scale the plasma would oscillate at the ion-acoustic frequency. The modes that would be influenced by this effect depend on the starting time and the initial temperature of reionization, but roughly lie in the range $0.5 h{\rm Mpc}^{-1}< k$, which corresponds to the region of the Lyman-$\alpha$ forest from the inter-galactic medium. We predict that in the linear regime of density-contrast growth, the plasma suppression of the matter power spectrum would approach $1-(\Omega_{dm}/\Omega_m)^2\sim 1-(5/6)^2\sim 30%$., Comment: 4 pages and 2 figures

The well-known hierarchy between the Planck scale (~10^{19}GeV) and the TeV scale, namely a ratio of ~10^{16} between the two, is coincidentally repeated in a inverted order between the TeV scale and the dark energy scale at \~10^{-3}eV implied by the observations. We argue that this is not a numerical coincidence. The same brane-world setups to address the first hierarchy problem may also in principle address this second hierarchy issue. Specifically, we consider supersymmetry in the bulk and its breaking on the brane and resort to the Casimir energy induced by the bulk graviton-gravitino mass-shift on the brane as the dark energy. For the ADD model we found that our notion is sensible only if the number of extra dimension n=2. We extend our study to the Randall-Sundrum model. Invoking the chirality-flip on the boundaries for SUSY-breaking, the zero-mode gravitino contribution to the Casimir energy does give rise to the double hierarchy. Unfortunately since the higher Kaluza-Klein modes acquire relative mass-shifts at the TeV level, the zero-mode contribution to Casimir energy is overshadowed., Comment: Submitted to the DM06 Proceedings (to be published by Nuclear Physics B)

We show that the cascade limit on ultra high energy cosmic neutrino (UHEC$\nu$) flux imposes a lower bound on the neutrino mass provided that super-GZK events of ultra high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) are produced from Z-bursts. Based on the data from HiRes and AGASA, the obtained neutrino mass lower bound violates its existing cosmological upper bound. We conclude that the Z-bursts cannot be the dominant source for the observed super-GZK UHECR events. This is consistent with the recent ANITA-lite data., Comment: 6 pages, derivation simplified and main idea consolidated, and appendix added

In this paper we study various cosmological solutions for a D3/D7 system directly from M-theory with fluxes and M2-branes. In M-theory, these solutions exist only if we incorporate higher derivative corrections from the curvatures as well as G-fluxes. We take these corrections into account and study a number of toy cosmologies, including one with a novel background for the D3/D7 system whose supergravity solution can be completely determined. This new background preserves all the good properties of the original model and opens up avenues to investigate cosmological effects from wrapped branes and brane-antibrane annihilation, to name a few. We also discuss in some detail semilocal defects with higher global symmetries, for example exceptional ones, that could occur in a slightly different regime of our D3/D7 model. We show that the D3/D7 system does have the required ingredients to realise these configurations as non-topological solitons of the theory. These constructions also allow us to give a physical meaning to the existence of certain underlying homogeneous quaternionic Kahler manifolds., Comment: Harvmac, 115 pages, 9 .eps figures; v2: typos corrected, references added and the last section expanded; v3: Few minor typos corrected and references added. Final version to appear in JHEP

A new model for the origin of dark energy is proposed based on the Casimir effect in a supersymmetry-breaking brane-world. Supersymmetry is assumed to be preserved in the bulk while broken on a 3-brane. Due to the boundary conditions imposed on the compactified extra dimensions, there is an effective Casimir energy induced on the brane. The net Casimir energy contributed from the graviton and the gravitino modes as a result of supersymmetry-breaking on the brane is identified as the observed dark energy, which in our construction is a cosmological constant. We show that the smallness of the cosmological constant, which results from the huge contrast in the extra-dimensional volumes between that associated with the 3-brane and that of the bulk, is attainable under very relaxed conditions., Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures

While there exist various candidates, the identification of dark matter remains unresolved. Recently it was argued that the generalized uncertainty principle (GUP) may prevent a black hole from evaporating completely, and as a result there should exist a Planck-size BHR at the end of its evaporation. We speculate that the stability of BHR may be further protected by supersymmetry in the form of extremal black hole. If this is indeed the case and if a sufficient amount of small black holes can be produced in the early universe, then the resultant BHRs can be an interesting candidate for DM. We demonstrate that this is the case in the hybrid inflation model. By assuming BHR as DM, our notion imposes a constraint on the hybrid inflation potential. We show that such a constraint is not fine-tuned. Possible observational signatures are briefly discussed.

There have been proposals that primordial black hole remnants (BHRs) are the dark matter, but the idea is somewhat vague. Recently we argued that the generalized uncertainty principle (GUP) may prevent black holes from evaporating completely, in a similar way that the standard uncertainty principle prevents the hydrogen atom from collapsing. We further noted that the hybrid inflation model provides a plausible mechanism for production of large numbers of small black holes. Combining these we suggested that the dark matter might be composed of Planck-size BHRs. In this paper we briefly review these arguments, and discuss the reheating temperature as a result of black hole evaporation., Comment: Contributed to the Proceedings of International Symposium on Frontiers of Science in Celebration of the 80th Birthday of Chen Ning Yang, June 17-19, 2002, Beijing, China

Recent years have seen tremendous progress in our understanding of the extreme universe, which in turn points to even deeper questions to be further addressed. History has shown that the symbiosis between direct observations and laboratory investigations is instrumental in the progress of astrophysics. Current frontier astrophysical phenomena related to particle astrophysics and cosmology typically involve one or more of the following conditions: (1) extremely high energy events;(2) very high density, high temperature processes; (3) super strong field environments. Laboratory experiments using high intensity lasers and particle beams can calibrate astrophysical observation or detection processes, investigate the underlying dynamics of astrophysical phenomena, and probe fundamental physics in extreme limits. We give examples of possible laboratory experiments that investigate into the extreme universe.

There have been proposals that primordial black hole remnants (BHRs) are the dark matter, but the idea is somewhat vague. We argue here first that the generalized uncertainty principle (GUP) may prevent black holes from evaporating completely, in a similar way that the standard uncertainty principle prevents the hydrogen atom from collapsing. Secondly we note that the hybrid inflation model provides a plausible mechanism for production of large numbers of small black holes. Combining these we suggest that the dark matter might be composed of Planck-size BHRs and discuss the possible constraints and signatures associated with this notion.

A cosmic acceleration mechanism is introduced which is based on the wakefields excited by the Alfven shocks in a relativistically flowing plasma, where the energy gain per distance of a test particle is Lorentz invariant. We show that there exists a threshold condition for transparency below which the accelerating particle is collision-free and suffers little energy loss in the plasma medium. The stochastic encounters of the random accelerating-decelerating phases results in a power-law energy spectrum: f(e) 1/e^2. The environment suitable for such plasma wakefield acceleration can be cosmically abundant. As an example, we discuss the possible production of super-GZK ultra high energy cosmic rays (UHECR) through this mechanism in the atmosphere of gamma ray bursts. We show that the acceleration gradient can be as high as G ~ 10^16 eV/cm. The estimated event rate in our model agrees with that from UHECR observations., Comment: 11 pages, 1 figure, submitted to Phys. Rev. Lett