Munch

We use cosmological simulations to explore the large-scale effects of reionization. Since reionization is a process that involves a large dynamic range - from galaxies to rare bright quasars - we need to be able to cover a significant volume of the universe in our simulation without losing hte important small scale effects from galaxies. Here we have taken an approach that uses clumping factors derived from small scale simulations to approximate the radiative transfer on the sub-cell scales. Using this technique, we can cover a simulation size up to $1280 h^{-1} Mpc$ with $10 h^{-1} Mpc$ cells. This allows us to construct synthetic spectra of quasars similar to observed spectra of SDSS quasars at high reshifts and compare them to the observational data. These spectra can then be analyzed for HII region sizes, the presence of the Gunn-Peterson trough and the Lyman-$\alpha$ forest.

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Dark Matter Clumpiness

Cosmological Origin of Small-Scale Clumps and DM Annihilation Signal

Authors: Veniamin Berezinsky, Vyacheslav Dokuchaev, Yury Eroshenko
Comments: The new element of this paper is estimation of contribution to annihilation from large-scale clumps in comparison with small ones
Journal-ref: Proceedings of the 6th RESCEU International Symposium on "Frontier in Astroparticle Physics and Cosmology", eds. K. Sato and S. Nagataki (Universal Academy Press Inc.: Tokyo, Japan, 2004), p241-248

We study the cosmological origin of small-scale DM clumps in the hierarchical scenario with the most conservative assumption of adiabatic Gaussian fluctuations. The mass spectrum of small-scale clumps with M<10^3Msun is calculated with tidal destruction of the clumps taken into account within the hierarchical model of clump structure. Only 0.1-0.5% of small clumps survive the stage of tidal destruction in each logarithmic mass interval. The mass distribution of clumps has a cutoff at Mmin due to diffusion of DM particles out of a fluctuation and free streaming at later stage. Mmin is a model dependent quantity. In the case the neutralino DM, considered as a pure bino, Mmin~10^-8 Msun. The evolution of density profile in a DM clump does not result in the singularity because of formation of the core under influence of tidal interaction. The radius of the core is ~0.1R, where R is radius of the clump. The applications for annihilation of DM particles in the Galactic halo are studied. The number density of clumps as a function of their mass, radius and distance to the Galactic center is presented. The enhancement of annihilation signal due to clumpiness, valid for arbitrary DM particles, is calculated. In spite of small survival probability, the global annihilation signal in most cases is dominated by clumps, with major contribution given by small clumps. The enhancement due to large clumps with M>10^6 Msun is very small.

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DM clumps as discrete sources of gamma-radiation

Authors: K.M. Belotsky, A.M. Galper
Comments: 4 pages, 2 figures

Massive objects (clumps) of Cold Dark Matter (CDM) in Galaxy can appear due to its annihilation as discrete sources of gamma-radiation. Some number of unidentified regular gamma-sources, observed by EGRET, can be accounted for by massive CDM clumps. Future gamma-ray expreriment GLAST in combination with data of EGRET will enable to probe a wide range of models of clumped annihilating CDM.

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Earth-mass dark-matter haloes as the first structures in the early Universe

Authors: Juerg Diemand, Ben Moore, Joachim Stadel (University of Zurich)
Comments: 11 pages, 3 figures, published in Nature, January 27, 2005
Subj-class: Astrophysics; Space Physics
Journal-ref: Nature 433 (2005) 389-391

The Universe was nearly smooth and homogeneous before a redshift of z = 100, about 20 million years after the Big Bang. After this epoch, the tiny fluctuations imprinted upon the matter distribution during the initial expansion began to collapse because of gravity. The properties of these fluctuations depend on the unknown nature of dark matter, the determination of which is one of the biggest challenges in present-day science. Here we report supercomputer simulations of the concordance cosmological model, which assumes neutralino dark matter (at present the preferred candidate), and find that the first objects to form are numerous Earth-mass dark-matter haloes about as large as the Solar System. They are stable against gravitational disruption, even within the central regions of the Milky Way. We expect over 10^15 to survive within the Galactic halo, with one passing through the Solar System every few thousand years. The nearest structures should be among the brightest sources of gamma-rays (from particle-particle annihilation).

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Indications for a preferred reference frame from an ether-drift experiment

Authors: M. Consoli, E. Costanzo
Comments: 7 pages, plain Latex

We present a fully model-independent analysis of the extensive observations reported by a recent ether-drift experiment in Berlin. No a priori assumption is made on the nature of a hypothetical preferred frame. We find a remarkable consistency with an Earth's cosmic motion exhibiting an average declination angle |\gamma|\sim 43^o and with values of the RMS anisotropy parameter (1/2-\beta+\delta) that are one order of magnitude larger than the presently quoted ones. This might represent the first modern indication for a preferred frame and for a non-zero anisotropy of the speed of light.

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A Gravitational Tractor for Towing Asteroids

Authors: Edward T. Lu, Stanley G. Love
Comments: 4 pages, 1 figure - to be published in Nature

We present a concept for a spacecraft that can controllably alter the trajectory of an Earth threatening asteroid using gravity as a towline. The spacecraft hovers near the asteroid with thrusters angled outward so the exhaust does not impinge on the surface. This deflection method is insensitive to the structure, surface properties, and rotation state of the asteroid.

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Producing a Scale-Invariant Spectrum of Perturbations in a Hagedorn Phase of String Cosmology

Authors: Ali Nayeri, Robert H. Brandenberger, Cumrun Vafa
Comments: 4 pages, 1 figure
Report-no: HUTP-05/A048

We study the generation of cosmological perturbations during the Hagedorn phase of string gas cosmology. Using tools of string thermodynamics we provide indications that it may be possible to obtain a nearly scale-invariant spectrum of cosmological fluctuations on scales which are of cosmological interest today. In our cosmological scenario, the early Hagedorn phase of string gas cosmology goes over smoothly into the radiation-dominated phase of standard cosmology, without having a period of cosmological inflation.

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Dimensionless constants, cosmology and other dark matters

Authors: Max Tegmark (MIT), Anthony Aguirre (UCSC), Martin Rees (Cambridge), Frank Wilczek (MIT)
Comments: 29 pages, 12 figs

We identify 31 dimensionless physical constants required by particle physics and cosmology, and emphasize that both microphysical constraints and selection effects might help elucidate their origin. Axion cosmology provides an instructive example, in which these two kinds of arguments must both be taken into account, and work well together. If a Peccei-Quinn phase transition occurred before or during inflation, then the axion dark matter density will vary from place to place with a probability distribution. By calculating the net dark matter halo formation rate as a function of all four relevant cosmological parameters and assessing other constraints, we find that this probability distribution, computed at stable solar systems, is arguably peaked near the observed dark matter density. If cosmologically relevant WIMP dark matter is discovered, then one naturally expects comparable densities of WIMPs and axions, making it important to follow up with precision measurements to determine whether WIMPs account for all of the dark matter or merely part of it.

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Probing neutrino masses with CMB lensing extraction

Authors: Julien Lesgourgues, Laurence Perotto, Sergio Pastor, Michel Piat
Comments: 13 pages, 3 figures
Report-no: LAPTH-1128/05, IFIC/05-60, APC-05-90

We evaluate the ability of future cosmic microwave background (CMB) experiments to measure the power spectrum of large scale structure using quadratic estimators of the weak lensing deflection field. We calculate the sensitivity of upcoming CMB experiments such as BICEP, QUaD, BRAIN, ClOVER and PLANCK to the non-zero total neutrino mass M_nu indicated by current neutrino oscillation data. We find that these experiments greatly benefit from lensing extraction techniques, improving their one-sigma sensitivity to M_nu by a factor of order four. The combination of data from PLANCK and the SAMPAN mini-satellite project would lead to sigma(M_nu) = 0.1 eV, while a value as small as sigma(M_nu) = 0.035 eV is within the reach of a space mission based on bolometers with a passively cooled 3-4 m aperture telescope, representative of the most ambitious projects currently under investigation. We show that our results are robust not only considering possible difficulties in subtracting astrophysical foregrounds from the primary CMB signal but also when the minimal cosmological model (Lambda Mixed Dark Matter) is generalized in order to include a possible scalar tilt running, a constant equation of state parameter for the dark energy and/or extra relativistic degrees of freedom.

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Inflation at the TeV scale with a PNGB curvaton

Authors: Konstantinos Dimopoulos
Comments: 14 pages, 1 figure

We investigate a particular type of curvaton mechanism, under which inflation can occur at Hubble scale of order 1 TeV. The curvaton is a pseudo Nambu-Goldstone boson, whose order parameter increases after a phase transition during inflation, triggered by the gradual decrease of the Hubble scale. The mechanism is studied in the context of modular inflation, where the inflaton is a string axion. We show that the mechanism is successful for natural values of the model parameters, provided the phase transition occurs much earlier than the time when the cosmological scales exit the horizon. Also, it turns our that the radial mode for our curvaton must be a flaton field.

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