Linear Cosmological Perturbations Research Articles

Gauge-invariant cosmological perturbations in general teleparallel gravity

We study linear cosmological perturbations in the most general teleparallel gravity setting, where gravity is mediated by the torsion and nonmetricity of a flat connection alongside the metric. For a general linear perturbation of this geometry around a homogeneous and isotropic background geometry, we derive the irreducible decomposition of the perturbation variables, as well as their behavior under gauge transformations, i.e., infinitesimal diffeomorphisms generated by a vector field. In addition, we also study these properties for the most general set of matter variables and gravitational field equations. We then make use of these result to construct gauge-invariant perturbation variables, using a general approach based on gauge conditions. We further calculate these quantities also in the metric and symmetric teleparallel geometries, where nonmetricity or torsion is imposed to vanish. To illustrate our results, we derive the energy-momentum–hypermomentum conservation equations for both the cosmological background and the linear perturbations. As another example, we study the propagation of tensor perturbations in the f(G), f(T) and f(Q) class of theories.

Gravitational redshift constraints on the effective theory of interacting dark energy

Upcoming galaxy surveys provide the necessary sensitivity to measure gravitational redshift, a general relativistic effect that generates a dipole in galaxy clustering data when correlating two distinct populations of galaxies. Here, we study the constraining power of gravitational redshift within the framework of the effective theory of interacting dark energy. This formalism describes linear cosmological perturbations in scalar-tensor theories of gravity with a limited number of free functions, and allows each particle species to be coupled differently to the gravitational sector. In this work, we focus on Horndeski theories with a non-minimal coupling of dark matter to the scalar degree of freedom, yielding a breaking of the weak equivalence principle for this cosmic component, a scenario that is yet untested. We show that the dipole generated by gravitational redshift significantly breaks degeneracies and tightens the constraints on the parameters of the effective theory compared to the standard redshift-space distortion analysis solely based on the even multipoles in the galaxy correlation function, with an improvement of up to ∼ 50% for populations with a galaxy bias difference equal to 1. We make the Python package EF-TIGRE (Effective Field Theory of Interacting dark energy with Gravitational REdshift) developed for this work publicly available (https://github.com/Mik3M4n/EF-TIGRE).

Fluctuation-dissipation relation in cosmic microwave background

We study the fluctuation-dissipation relation for sound waves in the cosmic microwave background (CMB), employing effective field theory (EFT) for fluctuating hydrodynamics.Treating sound waves as the linear response to thermal radiation, we establish the fluctuation-dissipation relation within a cosmological framework.While dissipation is elucidated in established linear cosmological perturbation theory, the standard Boltzmann theory overlooks the associated noise, possibly contributing to inconsistencies in Lambda Cold Dark Matter (ΛCDM) cosmology. This paper employs EFT for fluctuating hydrodynamics in cosmological perturbation theory, deriving sound wave noise.Notably, the long-time limit of the noise spectrum is independent of viscosity details, resembling a Brownian motion bounded in a harmonic potential.The net energy transfer between the sound wave system and the radiation environment reaches a balance within Hubble time, suggesting the thermal equilibrium of the sound waves themselves.The induced density power spectrum is characterized as white noise dependent on the inverse of the entropy density, which is negligibly small on the CMB scale. The energy density of the entire sound wave system scales as a -4, akin to radiation. While the numerical factor is not determined in the present calculation, the back reaction of the sound wave system to the background radiation may not be negligible, serving as a potential source for various fitting issues in ΛCDM cosmology.

Temporal evolution of cosmological density perturbations of the Bose–Einstein condensate dark matter

Dark matter is assumed to be composed of scalar boson particles that form Bose–Einstein condensate during the cosmic evolution of the Universe when the temperature of the dark matter is below the critical temperature Tcr\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$T_{cr}$$\\end{document}. At around a redshift z∼1200\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$z\\sim 1200$$\\end{document}, the normal dark matter converted to Bose–Einstein condensate dark matter through a first-order phase transition and continued to complete the condensation process for nearly 106\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$10^6$$\\end{document} years, until then, both phases coexist. In this manuscript, considering Bose–Einstein condensate dark matter as a Gross–Pitaevskii–Poisson system, we study the time evolution of density contrast of Bose–Einstein condensate dark matter using cosmological linear perturbation theory following previous works on the subject. The evolution equation contains quantum pressure due to Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle and self-interaction pressure terms. We solve the temporal density contrast equation of Bose–Einstein condensate dark matter analytically for both the Thomas-Fermi limit and the non-interacting case where the expansion rule follows similarly to that of the Einstein–de Sitter Universe. In addition, we also numerically analyze the temporal nature of the evolution of density contrast of Bose–Einstein condensate dark matter for the complete equation without applying any approximation. We find that the Bose–Einstein condensate model of dark matter could modify the temporal nature of density contrast evolution due to the presence of self-interaction and quantum pressure terms, which shows significant differences with respect to the conventional standard cold dark matter, and successfully solves the small-scale problems in the context of cosmological structure formation.

Primordial non-Gaussianity f NL and anisotropies in scalar-induced gravitational waves

Primordial non-Gaussianity encodes vital information of the physics of the early universe, particularly during the inflationary epoch. To explore the local-type primordial non-Gaussianity f NL, we study the anisotropies in gravitational wave background induced by the linear cosmological scalar perturbations during radiation domination in the early universe. We provide the first complete analysis to the angular power spectrum of such scalar-induced gravitational waves. The spectrum is expressed in terms of the initial inhomogeneities, the Sachs-Wolfe effect, and their crossing. It is anticipated to have frequency dependence and multipole dependence, i.e., Cℓ (ν) ∝ [ℓ(ℓ+1)]-1 with ν being a frequency and ℓ referring to the ℓ-th spherical harmonic multipole. In particular, the initial inhomogeneites in this background depend on gravitational-wave frequency. These properties are potentially useful for the component separation, foreground removal, and breaking degeneracies in model parameters, making the non-Gaussian parameter f NL measurable. Further, theoretical expectations may be tested by space-borne gravitational-wave detectors in future.

Scalar Field Evolution at Background and Perturbation Levels for a Broad Class of Potentials

AbstractIn this paper, a non‐interacting scalar field cosmology with an arbitrary potential using the f‐deviser method that relies on the differentiability properties of the potential is investigated. Using this alternative mathematical approach, a unified dynamical system analysis at a scalar field's background and perturbation levels with arbitrary potentials is presented. For illustration, a monomial and double exponential potential is considered. These two classes of potentials comprise the asymptotic behavior of several classes of scalar field potentials, and, therefore, they provide the skeleton for the typical behavior of arbitrary potentials. Moreover, the linear cosmological perturbations in the matterless case by considering three scalar perturbations: the evolution of the Bardeen potentials, the comoving curvature perturbation, the so‐called Sasaki‐Mukhanov variable, or the scalar field perturbation in uniform curvature gauge is analyzed. Finally, an exhaustive dynamical system analysis for each scalar perturbation is presented, including the evolution of Bardeen potentials in the presence of matter.

CosmicNet II: emulating extended cosmologies with efficient and accurate neural networks

In modern analysis pipelines, Einstein-Boltzmann Solvers (EBSs) are an invaluable tool for obtaining CMB and matter power spectra. To significantly accelerate the computation of these observables, the CosmicNet strategy is to replace the usual bottleneck of an EBS, which is the integration of a system of differential equations for linear cosmological perturbations, by trained neural networks. This strategy offers several advantages compared to the direct emulation of the final observables, including very small networks that are easy to train in high-dimensional parameter spaces, and which do not depend by construction on primordial spectrum parameters nor observation-related quantities such as selection functions. In this second CosmicNet paper, we present a more efficient set of networks that are already trained for extended cosmologies beyond ΛCDM, with massive neutrinos, extra relativistic degrees of freedom, spatial curvature, and dynamical dark energy. We publicly release a new branch of the class code, called classnet, which automatically uses networks within a region of trusted accuracy. We demonstrate the accuracy and performance of classnet by presenting several parameter inference runs from Planck, BAO and supernovae data, performed with classnet and the cobaya inference package. We have eliminated the perturbation module as a bottleneck of the EBS, with a speedup that is even more remarkable in extended cosmologies, where the usual approach would have been more expensive while the network's performance remains the same. We obtain a speedup factor of order 150 for the emulated perturbation module of class. For the whole code, this translates into an overall speedup factor of order 3 when computing CMB harmonic spectra (now dominated by the highly parallelizable and further optimizable line-of-sight integration), and of order 50 when computing matter power spectra (less than 0.1 seconds even in extended cosmologies).

Second-order energy-momentum tensor of a scalar field

We investigate the second-order effective energy-momentum tensor (2EMT) constructed by the quadratic terms of the linear scalar cosmological perturbations while the universe is dominated by a scalar field. We show that 2EMT is gauge dependent. We then study 2EMT in three (longitudinal, spatially flat, and comoving) gauge conditions in the slow-roll stage of inflation. We find that 2EMT exhibits an effective fluid of $w=\ensuremath{-}1/3$ on superhorizon scales in all of those gauge conditions.

Peculiar velocities in the early Universe

Large-scale peculiar motions are commonplace in our universe. Nevertheless, their origin, evolution and implications are still largely unknown. It is generally assumed that bulk motions are a relatively recent addition to the universal kinematics, triggered by the increasing inhomogeneity and anisotropy of the post-recombination epoch. In this work, we focus on the linear evolution of peculiar velocities prior to recombination, namely in the late radiation era and also during a phase of de Sitter inflation. We begin by showing/confirming that bulk motions are triggered and sustained by the non-gravitational forces developed during structure formation. Since density and therefore peculiar-velocity perturbations cannot grow in the baryonic sector before recombination, we consider drift motions in non-baryonic species, which can start growing in the late radiation era. Using relativistic linear cosmological perturbation theory, we find that peculiar motions in the low-energy dark component exhibit power-law growth, which increases further after equipartition. Turning to the very early universe, we consider the evolution of linear peculiar velocities during a phase of de Sitter inflation. We find that typical slow-roll scenarios do not source peculiar motions. Moreover, even if the latter were to be present at the onset of the de Sitter phase, the subsequent exponential expansion should quickly wash away any traces of peculiar-velocity perturbations.

Interacting dark sector from the trace-free Einstein equations: Cosmological perturbations with no instability

In trace-free Einstein gravity, the stress-energy tensor of matter is not necessarily conserved and so the theory offers a natural framework for interacting dark energy models where dark energy has a constant equation of state $w=-1$. We derive the equations of motion for linear cosmological perturbations in interacting dark energy models of this class, focusing on the scalar sector. Then, we consider a specific model where the energy-momentum transfer potential is proportional to the energy density of cold dark matter; this transfer potential has the effect of inducing an effective equation of state $w_{\rm eff}\neq0$ for cold dark matter. We analyze in detail the evolution of perturbations during radiation domination on super-Hubble scales, finding that the well-known large-scale instability that affects a large class of interacting dark energy models is absent in this model. To avoid a gradient instability, energy must flow from dark matter to dark energy. Finally, we show that interacting dark energy models with $w=-1$ are equivalent to a class of generalized dark matter models.

Spin connection and cosmological perturbations in scalar-torsion gravity

In this paper, we generalize our previous results on spin connection for the linear scalar cosmological perturbation in [Formula: see text] theory to a wider class of theories which includes a scalar field [Formula: see text] non-minimally coupled to torsion, and allows [Formula: see text]-dependence of the function [Formula: see text]. The case of [Formula: see text], with a scalar field non-minimally coupled to torsion, needs a special treatment. In both considered cases we derive self-consistent equations of motion for cosmological perturbation using a solution for non-trivial spin connection.

Possible consistent model of parity violations in the symmetric teleparallel gravity

Many parity violating gravity models suffer from the ghost instability problem. In this paper, we consider a symmetric teleparallel gravity model that extends the general relativity equivalent model by several parity violating interactions between the gravitational field and a scalar field. These interactions exclude higher derivatives and are quadratic in the nonmetricity tensor. Through investigations on the linear cosmological perturbations, our results show that, in general, this model suffers from the difficulty caused by the existence of ghost mode in the vector perturbations. However, in cases where a special condition is imposed on the coefficients of these parity violating interactions, this model can be ghost free.

Global dynamics of the hyperbolic Chiral-Phantom model

We perform a detailed analysis of the asymptotic behavior of a multi-field cosmological model with phantom terms. Specifically, we consider the Chiral-Phantom model consisting of two scalar fields with a mixed kinetic term, where one scalar field has negative kinetic energy, that is, it has phantom properties. We show that the Hubble function can change sign, and we study the global evolution of the field equations in the finite and infinity regions with the use of Poincaré variables. We find that in the Chiral-Phantom model the limit of the quintessence scalar field is recovered, while the cosmological evolution differs from the standard hyperbolic theory. Finally, the linear cosmological perturbations are studied.

The effective field theory of vector-tensor theories

We investigate a systematic formulation of vector-tensor theories based on the effective field theory (EFT) approach. The input of our EFT is that the spacetime symmetry is spontaneously broken by the existence of a preferred timelike direction in accordance with the cosmological principle. After clarifying the difference of the symmetry breaking pattern from the conventional EFT of inflation/dark energy, we find an EFT description of vector-tensor theories around the cosmological background. This approach not only serves as a unified description of vector-tensor theories but also highlights universal differences between the scalar-tensor theories and the vector-tensor theories. The theories having different symmetry breaking patterns are distinguished by a phenomenological function and consistency relations between the EFT coefficients. We study the linear cosmological perturbations within our EFT framework and discuss the characteristic properties of the vector-tensor theories in the context of dark energy. In particular, we compute the effective gravitational coupling and the slip parameter for the matter density contrast in terms of the EFT coefficients.

Inflation in a scalar–vector–tensor theory

In this work, we study inflation in a particular scalar-vector-tensor theory of gravitation without the $U(1)$ gauge symmetry. The model is constructed from the more general action introduced in Heisenberg et al. (Phys Rev D 98:024038, 2018) using certain specific choices for the Lagrangians and the coupling functions. Also, for this model we build the explicit form for the action, and from it, we derive the general equations: the energy-momentum tensor and the equations of motion, and using the flat FLRW background, we have analyzed if it's possible to obtain an inflationary regime with it. Additionally, using particular choices for the potential, the coupling functions, suitable dimensionless coupling constants and initial conditions, it was possible verify numerically that this model of inflation is viable. In this sense, we could verify that the introduction of the coupling function $f(\phi)$ in our model of inflation, allows us to reach a suitable amount of $e$-foldings $N$ for sufficient inflation. This is a remarkable result, since without the coupling function contribution, the amount of $e$-foldings is smaller at the end of inflation, as has been demonstrated in Heisenberg et al. (2018). Also, the no-ghosts and stability conditions that the model during inflation must satisfy, i.e., absence of ghosts and Laplacian instabilities of linear cosmological perturbations were obtained, furthermore these conditions were verified numerically too.

Nonclassical cosmological dynamics in the low-energy limit of loop quantum scalar-tensor theory

In previous work, we showed that in loop quantum cosmology of scalar-tensor theory (STT) with the holonomy correction the background equations of motion in the Jordan frame have two branches, i.e., the ${b}_{+}$ branch and the ${b}_{\ensuremath{-}}$ branch. In the low-energy limit, the ${b}_{+}$ branch of the equations of motion reproduce the equations of motion of classical STT, while the ${b}_{\ensuremath{-}}$ branch of equations of motion do not reproduce the classical equations. In this paper, we investigate cosmological dynamics in an expanding universe whose background is described by the ${b}_{\ensuremath{-}}$ branch of equations of motion of STT, and we especially focus on the dynamics of the perturbations in the low-energy limit because it is most relevant to the current observational range. First, we show that the low-energy limit of the ${b}_{\ensuremath{-}}$ branch of equations of motion can be a stable attractor in the expansion phase of a universe. Then, we find a low-energy effective Hamiltonian on the spatially flat Friedmann-Robertson-Walker background. The background part of this Hamiltonian can yield the low-energy limit of the ${b}_{\ensuremath{-}}$ branch of equations, and this Hamiltonian consists of constraints whose constraint algebra is different from the classical case but also closed up to arbitrary order of perturbations. Remarkably, we find that this Hamiltonian can be transformed into the Hamiltonian of the Einstein frame by field redefinitions different from the classical case. Moreover, we also develop the linear cosmological perturbation theory and apply it to study the slow-roll inflation in this context. Finally, we study a specific model of STT. In this model, a contracting universe described by classical STT in the remote past can pass through the bounce and evolve into an expanding universe whose background dynamics is described by the ${b}_{\ensuremath{-}}$ branch of equations of motion. It is also shown that the slow-roll inflation can take place in this case, and the spectral indices of the slow-roll inflation agree well with the observations. The results in this paper indicate that there exists an alternative consistent theory which is different from the classical theory in the low-energy limit of loop quantum STT.

Fluid approach of linear cosmological Nash–Greene perturbations

In this paper, we obtain numerical solutions of the linear cosmological Nash-Greene perturbation equations in an embedded four dimensional space-time. We propose an effective fluid approach with the full anisotropic stresses to interpret the consequences of the extrinsic curvature on the cosmic dynamics. The effective Newtonian function G e f f is used to estimate the model parameters once it must obey Big Bang Nucleosynthesis and solar constraints. To obtain sufficiently accurate precision on the cosmic fluid parameter w , we use the Dynamic Nested Sampling algorithm with DYNESTY code to the obtainment of viable solutions of numerical evolutions of the matter growth rate, scalar fluid velocity, anisotropic quantities and on the analysis of effective sound speed. By means of a modified version of CLASS Einstein-Boltzmann solver, called EFCLASS , we obtain prospects on the resulting CMB TT angular spectra with the integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect, which is weakened on low- l scales as compared with the Λ CDM profile. Moreover, the obtained linear matter power spectrum P ( k ) profiles are compatible with Λ CDM standard results. • Dynamical approach for extrinsic curvature by means of Nash-Greene theorem. • Subhorizon linear perturbations in the embedding context. • A fluid approach for the extrinsic curvature with the full presence of anisotropic stresses. • The related ISW effect is suppressed as compared with the Λ CDM profiles.

Interacting quintessence in light of generalized uncertainty principle: cosmological perturbations and dynamics

We consider a cosmological scenario endowed with an interaction between the universe’s dark components – dark matter and dark energy. Specifically, we assume the dark matter component to be a pressure-less fluid, while the dark energy component is a quintessence scalar field with Lagrangian function modified by the quadratic Generalized Uncertainty Principle. The latter modification introduces new higher-order terms of fourth-derivative due to quantum corrections in the scalar field’s equation of motion. Then, we investigate asymptotic dynamics and general behaviour of solutions of the field equations for some interacting models of special interests in the literature. At the background level, the present interacting model exhibits the matter-dominated and de Sitter solutions which are absent in the corresponding quintessence model. Furthermore, to boost the background analysis, we study cosmological linear perturbations in the Newtonian gauge where we show how perturbations are modified by quantum corrected terms from the quadratic Generalized Uncertainty Principle. Depending on the coupling parameters, scalar perturbations show a wide range of behavior.

Sub-horizon modes and growth index in a linear scalar cosmological perturbations

We test a four dimensional cosmological model embedded in a five dimensional bulk space by means of the dynamical Nash-Greene theorem. In a fluid approach, we apply a joint likelihood analysis to the data with the Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method for cosmological parameter estimation. We use recent datasets as the “Gold 2018” growth-rate data, the Planck2018/varLambda CDM data on the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies, the Baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) measurements, the Pantheon Supernovae type Ia and the data on the Hubble parameter H(z) with redshift ranging from 0.01< z < 2.3. Performing the Information Criterion (IC) analysis, we find that the present model is in very good agreement with observations with a close statistical equivalence with wCDM cosmologies at 1-sigma level with a slightly larger growth profiles. By modifications of CLASS(EFCLASS) code, we make a comparison between the models on their unlensed CMB TT temperature spectra. Moreover, the proposed model presents a low power spectrum by the reduction of the ISW effect at lower multipoles. We also find that the overall percentage relative difference of the growth index varDelta gamma (%) is up to 1.4% as compared to wCDM pattern in sub-horizon scales.

Threshold for primordial black holes. II. A simple analytic prescription

Primordial black holes could have been formed in the early universe from non linear cosmological perturbations re-entering the cosmological horizon when the Universe was still radiation dominated. Starting from the shape of the power spectrum on superhorizon scales, we provide a simple prescription, based on the results of numerical simulations, to compute the threshold $\delta_c$ for primordial black hole formation. Our procedure takes into account both the non linearities between the Gaussian curvature perturbation and the density contrast and, for the first time in the literature, the non linear effects arising at horizon crossing, which increase the value of the threshold by about a factor two with respect to the one computed on superhorizon scales.