Conveners
Cosmology II
- Brian Thomas Batell (CERN)
Mr
Mayukh Gangopadhyay
(Graduate Student)
5/4/15, 4:30 PM
parallel talk
The power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background from both the Planck and WMAP data exhibits a slight dip in the vicinity of
$l= 20-30$. We show that such a dip could be the result of resonant creation of a massive particle that couples
to the inflaton field. For our
best-fit models, epochs of resonant particle creation reenter the
horizon at wave numbers of $k_* \sim 0.00011 \pm...
Julian Munoz Bermejo
(Johns Hopkins University)
5/4/15, 4:45 PM
parallel talk
Measuring primordial non gaussianity will be the next observational milestone for inflation studies, since it will help us set apart the different inflationary models.
CMB observations of non gaussianity are cosmic-variance limited and, at this point, almost all the information possible has been extracted.
A popular alternative is the 21-cm line during the dark ages ($z \sim 30 - 100$)....
Prof.
Nobuchika Okada
(University of Alabama)
5/4/15, 5:00 PM
parallel talk
We present an inflationary model in which the Standard Model Higgs doublet field with non-minimal coupling to gravity drives inflation, and the effective Higgs potential is stabilized by new physics which includes a dark matter particle and right-handed neutrinos for the seesaw mechanism. All of the new particles are fermions, so that the Higgs doublet is the unique inflaton candidate. With...
Fedor Bezrukov
(CERN & University of Connecticut (US) & RIKEN BNL (US))
5/4/15, 5:15 PM
parallel talk
The models without additional energy scales (heavy particles) above the electroweak scale can provide relation between the low energy physics and cosmology. Probably the simplest example is the model with additional singlet scalar inflaton (with non-minimal coupling). It gets constraint simultaneously from the inflationary observations (tensor modes), dark matter production (for 7keV sterile...
Jason Evans
(University of Minnesota)
5/4/15, 5:30 PM
parallel talk
Motivated by the coincidence between the Hubble scale during inflation and the typical see-saw neutrino mass scale, we present a supergravity model where the inflaton is identified with a linear combination of right-handed sneutrino fields. The model accommodates an inflaton potential that is flatter than quadratic chaotic inflation, resulting in a measurable but not yet ruled out...
Bithika Jain
(Syracuse University)
5/4/15, 5:45 PM
parallel talk
The cosmological constant problem can be reformulated in the brane world models. In this talk I will discuss a “soft-wall” realization of the Randall Sundrum geometry where the infrared brane plays a lesser role as a cutoff for large curvature effects and low energy observables such as spectrum of states are largely insensitive to its position. I will explore the finite temperature behavior...
Mr
Digesh Raut
(Department of Physics, University of Alabama)
5/4/15, 6:00 PM
parallel talk
We consider $\lambda \phi^4$ inflation with non-minimal gravitational coupling in the context of the minimal B-L extension of the Standard Model, where the B-L Higgs field with a $+2$ B-L charge is identified as an inflaton. When quantum corrections for the inflation potential are taken into account, the instability of the potential occurs because of the small quartic coupling during the...
Jessica Cook
(Arizona State)
5/4/15, 6:15 PM
parallel talk
One possibility for studying reheating is to link the duration and final temperature after reheating, as well as its equation of state, to inflationary observables. For single-field inflationary models, if we approximate reheating by a constant equation of state, one can derive relations between reheating parameters and the scalar power spectrum amplitude and spectral index. While this is a...
