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We discuss how inflation can emerge from a four-fermion interaction induced by torsion. Inflation can arise from coupling torsion to Standard Model fermions, without any need of introducing new scalar particles beyond the Standard Model. Within this picture, the inflaton field can be a composite field of the SM-particles and arises from a Nambu-Jona-Lasinio mechanism in curved space-time, non-minimally coupled with the Ricci scalar. The model we specify predicts small value of the r-parameter, namely $r\sim 10^{-4} \div 10^{-2}$, which nonetheless would be detectable by the next generation of experiments, including BICEP 3 and the AliCPT projects., Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure

The Eddington-inspired-Born-Infeld (EiBI) model is reformulated within the mimetic approach. In the presence of a mimetic field, the model contains non-trivial vacuum solutions which could be free of spacetime singularity because of the Born-Infeld nature of the theory. We study a realistic primordial vacuum universe and prove the existence of regular solutions, such as primordial inflationary solutions of de Sitter type or bouncing solutions. Besides, the linear instabilities present in the EiBI model are found to be avoidable for some interesting bouncing solutions in which the physical metric as well as the auxiliary metric are regular at the background level., Comment: 18 pages, 2 figures and 1 table. References added. Version accepted in JCAP

In order to understand the nature of the accelerating expansion of the late-time universe, it is important to experimentally determine whether dark energy is a cosmological constant or dynamical in nature. If dark energy already exists prior to inflation, which is a reasonable assumption, then one expects that a dynamical dark energy would leave some footprint in the anisotropy of the late-time accelerated expansion. To demonstrate the viability of this notion, we invoke the quintessence field with the exponential potential as one of the simplest dynamical dark energy models allowed by observations. We investigate the effects of its quantum fluctuations (the physical origin of the perturbation being isocurvature) generated during inflation and having fully positive correlation with the primordial curvature perturbations, and estimate the anisotropy of the cosmic expansion so induced. We show that the primordial amplitude of quantum fluctuations of quintessence field {\delta\phi}_P can be related to the tensor-to-scalar ratio r, and we calculate the perturbed luminosity distance to first order and the associated luminosity distance power spectrum, which is an estimator of anisotropicity of late-time accelerated expansion. We find that the gravitational potential at large scales and late times is less decayed in QCDM compared to that in {\Lambda}CDM so that the smaller the redshift and multipole, the more relative deficit of power in QCDM. Our results of luminosity distance power spectrum also show the similar conclusions of suppression as that of the previous investigation regarding the effect of quantum fluctuations of quintessence field on the CMB temperature anisotropies., Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures

A class of dynamical dark energy models is constructed through an extended version of fermion fields corresponding to phantom dark ghost spinors, which are spin one half with mass dimension one. We find that if these spinors interact with torsion fields in a homogeneous and isotropic universe, then it does not imply any future dark energy singularity or any abrupt event, though the fermion has a negative kinetic energy. In fact, the equation of state of this dark energy model will asymptotically approach the value $w=-1$ from above without crossing the phantom divide and inducing therefore a de Sitter state. Consequently, we expect the model to be stable because no real phantom fields will be created. At late time, the torsion fields will vanish as the corresponding phantom dark ghost spinors dilute. As would be expected, intuitively, this result is unaffected by the presence of cold dark matter although the proof is not as straightforward as in general relativity., Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures. A heavily revised version without changes on the physical content. Version to appear in EPJC

In this paper, a modified Eddington-inspired-Born-Infeld (EiBI) theory with a pure trace term $g_{\mu\nu}R$ being added to the determinantal action is analysed from a cosmological point of view. It corresponds to the most general action constructed from a rank two tensor that contains up to first order terms in curvature. This term can equally be seen as a conformal factor multiplying the metric $g_{\mu\nu}$. This very interesting type of amendment has not been considered within the Palatini formalism despite the large amount of works on the Born-Infeld-inspired theory of gravity. This model can provide smooth bouncing solutions which were not allowed in the EiBI model for the same EiBI coupling. Most interestingly, for a radiation filled universe there are some regions of the parameter space that can naturally lead to a de Sitter inflationary stage without the need of any exotic matter field. Finally, in this model we discover a new type of cosmic "quasi-sudden" singularity, where the cosmic time derivative of the Hubble rate becomes very large but finite at a finite cosmic time., Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, RevTex4-1. References added and discussion extended. Version accepted in EPJC

We discuss a scheme of nonperturbative pair production by high energy photons ($\omega\gtrsim m$) in a strong external field achievable at the next high intensity laser experiments. The pair momentum is boosted and for $\omega\gtrsim 1.2m$ the pair yield is increased when the external field is formed by two laser pulses converging at a small angle. These characteristics are nonperturbative in origin and related to the presence of magnetic field in addition to electric field. By enhancing the signal over perturbative backgrounds, these features allow the employment of above-threshold photons $\omega>2m$, which further increases the pair yield. We note the close relation of this photon-pair conversion mechanism to spontaneous pair creation, recommending it as an accessible stepping stone experiment using state-of-the-art or soon-to-be laser technology., Comment: 15 pages, 2 figures, revtex format

The Born-Infeld determinantal gravity has been recently proposed as a way to smooth the Big Bang singularity. This theory is formulated on the Weitzenbock space-time and the teleparallel representation is used instead of the standard Riemannian representation. We find that although this theory is shown to be singularity-free for certain region of the parameter space in which the divergence of the Hubble rate at the high energy regime is substituted by a de-Sitter stage or a bounce in a Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker universe, cosmological singularities such as Big Rip, Big Bang, Big Freeze, and Sudden singularities can emerge in other regions of the configuration space of the theory. We also show that all these singular events exist even though the Universe is filled with a perfect fluid with a constant equation of state., Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, RevTex4-1. A minor change. Version accepted in PRD

We study cosmological perturbation theory within the framework of unimodular gravity. We show that the Lagrangian constraint on the determinant of the metric required by unimodular gravity leads to an extra constraint on the gauge freedom of the metric perturbations. Although the main equation of motion for the gravitational potential remains the same, the shift variable, which is gauge artifact in General Relativity, cannot be set to zero in unimodular gravity. This non-vanishing shift variable affects the propagation of photons throughout the cosmological evolution and therefore modifies the Sachs-Wolfe relation between the relativistic gravitational potential and the microwave temperature anisotropies. However, for adiabatic fluctuations the difference between the result in General Relativity and unimodular gravity is suppressed on large angular scales. Thus, no strong constraints on the theory can be derived.

Recent years have seen dramatic progress in cosmology and particle astrophysics. So much so that anyone who dares to offer an overview would certainly risk him- or herself for being incomplete and biased at best, and even incorrect due to the author's limited expertise. It is with this understanding and excuse that I risk myself in offering this review. After a brief summary of Planck mission's first results, I highlight some selected theoretical and experimental advancement in dark energy, dark matter, and cosmic neutrinos research. It is hoped that with a glance through these exciting development, one would be convinced that we are now a step closer to the ultimate understanding of our universe, while major breakthroughs are still required., Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures

Mergers of binary neutron stars create conditions of supranuclear density $n\gtrsim n_{\rm nuc}\simeq 0.17 {\rm fm}^{-3}$ and moderate temperature $50\lesssim T \lesssim 90 {\rm MeV}$. These events thus probe a sensitive region of the density-temperature phase diagram of QCD matter. We study photon production by the QCD conformal anomaly for a signal of a possible transition to quark degrees of freedom during the merger. We discuss energy loss due to photon radiation as a cooling mechanism that is sensitive to the bulk viscosity and thermal conductivity of the quark matter., Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures, two column revtex format; v2 typos corrected, Sec II discussion improved; v3 as published

Within the framework of RG improved inflationary cosmology motivated by asymptotically safe gravity, we study the dynamics of a scalar field which can be interpreted as the Higgs field. The background trajectories of this model can provide sufficient inflationary e-folds and a graceful exit to a radiation dominated phase. We study the possibility of generating primordial curvature perturbations through the Standard Model Higgs boson. This can be achieved under finely tuned parameter choices by making use of the modulated reheating mechanism. The primordial non-gaussianity is expected to be sizable in this model. Though tightly constrained by the newly released Planck CMB data, this model provides a potentially interesting connection between collider and early universe physics., Comment: 13 pages, 6 figures

We clarify in a quantitative way the impact that distinct chemical $T_c$ and kinetic $T_k$ freeze-out temperatures have on the reduction of the neutrino fugacity $\Upsilon_\nu$ below equilibrium, i.e. $\Upsilon_\nu<1$, and the increase of the neutrino temperature $T_\nu$ via partial reheating. We establish the connection between $\Upsilon_\nu$ and $T_k$ via the modified reheating relation $T_\nu(\Upsilon_\nu)/T_\gamma$, where $T_\gamma$ is the temperature of the background radiation. Our results demonstrate that one must introduce the chemical nonequilibrium parameter, i.e., the fugacity, $\Upsilon_\nu$, as an additional standard cosmological model parameter in the evaluation of CMB fluctuations as its value allows measurement of $T_k$., Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure

We propose a new method to identify flavors of ultra high energy cosmic neutrinos. Energy loss of leptons in matter provides important informations for the detection of neutrinos originated from high energy astrophysical sources. 50 years ago, Askaryan proposed to detect Cherenkov signals by radio wave from the negative charge excess of particle showers. The theory of Cherenkov pulses with Fraunhofer approximation was widely studied in the past two decades. However, at high energies or for high density materials, electromagnetic shower should be elongated due to the Landau-Pomeranchuck-Migdal (LPM) effect. As such the standard Fraunhofer approximation ceases to be valid when the distance between the shower and the detector becomes comparable with the shower length. We have performed Monte Carlo simulations recently to investigate this regime based on the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method, and modified time domain integration method. In this work, we adopt the deduced relationship between the radio signal and the cascade development profile to investigate its implication to lepton signatures. Our method provides a straightforward technique to identify the neutrino flavor through the detected Cherenkov signals.

There exists dark energy models that predict the occurrence of "little rip". At the point of little rip the Hubble rate and its cosmic time derivative approach infinity, which is quite similar to the big rip singularity except that the former happens at infinite future while the latter at a finite cosmic time; both events happen in the future and at high energies. In the case of the big rip, a combination of ultra-violet and infra-red effects can smooth its doomsday. We therefore wonder if the little rip can also be smoothed in a similar way. We address the ultra-violet and infra-red effects in general relativity through a brane-world model with a Gauss-Bonnet term in the bulk and an induced gravity term on the brane. We find that the little rip is transformed in this case into a sudden singularity, or a "big brake". Even though the big brake is smoother than the little rip in that the Hubble rate is finite at the event, the trade-off is that it takes place sooner, at a finite cosmic time. In our estimate, the big brake would happen at roughly 1300Gyr., Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures. RevTex4-1. Title modified and discussion expanded. Version accepted in European Physical Journal C

The origin of ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECR) has been widely regarded as one of the major questions in the frontiers of particle astrophysics. Gamma ray bursts (GRB), the most violent explosions in the universe second only to the Big Bang, have been a popular candidate site for UHECR productions. The recent IceCube report on the non-observation of GRB induced neutrinos therefore attracts wide attention. This dilemma requires a resolution: either the assumption of GRB as UHECR accelerator is to be abandoned or the expected GRB induced neutrino yield was wrong. It has been pointed out that IceCube has overestimated the neutrino flux at GRB site by a factor of $\sim 5$. In this paper we point out that, in addition to the issue of neutrino production at source, the neutrino oscillation and the possible neutrino decay during their flight from GRB to Earth should further reduce the detectability of IceCube, which is most sensitive to the muon-neutrino flavor as far as point-source identification is concerned. Specifically, neutrino oscillation will reduce the muon-neutrino flavor ratio from 2/3 per neutrino at GRB source to 1/3 on Earth, while neutrino decay, if exists and under the assumption of normal hierarchy of mass eigenstates, would result in a further reduction of muon-neutrino ratio to 1/8. With these in mind, we note that there have been efforts in recent years in pursuing other type of neutrino telescopes based on Askaryan effect, which can in principle observe and distinguish all three flavors with comparable sensitivities. Such new approach may therefore be complementary to IceCube in shedding more lights on this cosmic accelerator question., Comment: 9 pages, 1 figure

We perform a model independent study of the neutrino momentum distribution at freeze-out, treating the freeze-out temperature as a free parameter. Our results imply that measurement of neutrino reheating, as characterized by the measurement of the effective number of neutrinos $N_\nu$, amounts to the determination of the neutrino kinetic freeze-out temperature within the context of the standard model of particle physics where the number of neutrino flavors is fixed and no other massless (fractional) particles arise. At temperatures on the order of the neutrino mass, we show how cosmic background neutrino properties i.e. energy density, pressure, particle density, are modified in a physically consistent way as a function of neutrino mass and $N_\nu$., Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures

We present a simple toy model corresponding to a network of frustrated topological defects of domain walls or cosmic strings that exist previous to the standard slow-roll inflationary era of the universe. Such a network (i) can produce a slower inflationary era than that of the standard scenario if it corresponds to a network of frustrated domain walls or (ii) can induce a vanishing universal acceleration; i.e., the universe would expand at a constant speed, if it corresponds to a network of frustrated cosmic strings red. Those features are phenomenologically modeled by a Chaplygin gas that can interpolate between a network of frustrated topological defects and a de Sitter-like or a power-law inflationary era. We show that this scenario can alleviate the quadruple anomaly of the cosmic microwave background spectrum. Using the method of the Bogoliubov coefficients, we obtain the spectrum of the gravitational waves as would be measured today for the whole range of frequencies. We comment on the possible detection of this spectrum by the planned detectors like BBO and DECIGO., Comment: 11 pages, 12 figures. RevTex4-1. Expanded discussion. Version accepted in PRD

In this paper we study in detail the effect of our recently proposed model of parity and charge-parity (PCP) violating varying alpha on the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) photon passing through the intra galaxy-cluster medium (ICM). The ICM is well known to be composed of magnetized plasma. According to our model, the polarization and intensity of the CMB would be affected when traversing through the ICM due to non-trivial scalar photon interactions. We have calculated the evolution of such polarization and intensity collectively, known as the stokes parameters of the CMB photon during its journey through the ICM and tested our results against the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) measurement on Coma galaxy cluster. Our model contains a PCP violating parameter, $\beta$, and a scale of alpha variation $\omega$. Using the derived constrained on the photon-to-scalar conversion probability, ${\bar P}_{\gamma \rightarrow \phi}$, for Coma cluster in ref.[34] we found a contour plot in the ($\omega,\beta$) parameter plane. The $\beta =0$ line in this parameter space corresponds to well-studied Maxwell-dilaton type models which has lower bound on $\omega \gtrapprox 6.4 \times 10^{9}$ GeV. In general, as the absolute value of $\beta$ increases, lower bound on $\omega$ also increases. Our model in general predicts the modification of the CMB polarization with a non-trivial dependence on the parity violating coupling parameter $\beta$. However, it is unconstrained in this particular study. We show that this effect can in principle be detected in the future measurements on CMB polarization such that $\beta$ can also be constrained., Comment: 32 pages, 2 figures, Matched with the published version

We investigate the evolution of the linear cosmological perturbations in f(R) gravity, an alternative to dark energy for explaining the late-time cosmic acceleration. We numerically calculate the early-time evolution with an approximation we contrive to solve a problem that commonly appears when one solves the full evolution equations. With the approximate evolution equations we can fairly assess the effect of the gravity modification on the early-time evolution, thereby examining the validity of the general-relativity (GR) approximation that is widely used for the early universe. In particular, we compare the CMB photon density perturbation and the matter density perturbation obtained respectively by our approximation and the conventional GR approximation. We find that the effect of the gravity modification at early times in f(R) gravity may not be negligible. We conclude that to be self-consistent, in the f(R) theory one should employ the approximation presented in this paper instead of that of GR in the treatment of the early-time evolution., Comment: 14 pages, 3 figures

In this report we have studied the implication of a parity and charge-parity (PCP) violating interaction in varying alpha theory. Due to this interaction, the state of photon polarization can change when it passes through a strong background magnetic field. We have calculated the optical rotation and ellipticity of the plane of polarization of an electromagnetic wave and tested our results against different laboratory experiments. Our model contains a PCP violating parameter $\beta$ and a scale of alpha variation $\omega$. By analyzing the laboratory experimental data, we found the most stringent constraints on our model parameters to be $1\leq \omega \leq 10^{13} GeV^2$ and $-0.5\leq \beta \leq 0.5$. We also found that with the existing experimental input parameters it is very difficult to detect the ellipticity in the near future., Comment: 15 pages, 1 figure

We comment on the general solution of the scalar field dark matter provided in the paper "Remarks on the spherical scalar field halo in galaxies" by Kamal K. Nandi, Ildar Valitov and Nail G. Migranov. The authors made a mistake in the general form of the tangential pressure profile p_t(r), which deviates from the correct profile, especially when r is small. Although this mistake does not alter significantly the value of w(r) when the integration constant D is small, we found that it does result in an overestimate of w(r) when D is large., Comment: 2 pages and 2 figures

Matos, Guzman and Nunez proposed a model of galactic halo based on an exponential-potential scalar field that could induce a rotation curve that is constant for all radii. We demonstrate that with suitable boundary conditions, such scalar field dark matter (SDM) can not only produce the observed constant rotation curve at large radius but also give rise to the correct power-law scaling near the galactic core region. This solves the existing cusp-core problem faced by the conventional cold dark matter (CDM) model., Comment: 8 pages and 6 figures

Short review of riddles that lie at the intersection of quantum theory, particle physics and cosmology; dark energy as false vacuum; discussion of a possible detection experiment., Comment: 8p, lecture at the Tenth Workshop on Non-Perturbative Quantum Chromodynamics held at l'Institut Astrophysique de Paris June 8-12, 2009

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)

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

Drees and Godbole have proposed that, at the interaction point of an e+e- linear collider, one expects a high rate of hadron production by gamma-gamma collisions, providing an additional background to studies in e+e- annihilation. Using a simplified model of the gamma-gamma cross section with soft and jet-like components, we estimate the expected rate of these hadronic events for a variety of realistic machine designs. The final background rates are quite small, and they become smaller still when viewed with a realistic detector simulation., Comment: PHYZZX, 39 pages, including 3 tables; 14 figures are not included but are available upon request