Curvature Fluctuations Research Articles

Improvement of crystallinity and luminescence of GaN-based laser diode structure with suppressed curvature variation in active layers

The influence of curvature variation on the crystallinity and luminescence of GaN-based blue laser diode (LD) structure is comprehensively investigated during the growth of InGaN/GaN active layers. Compared with InGaN/GaN multiple quantum well (MQWs) grown by the conventional 2-temperature deposition, curvature variation is successfully suppressed and a much gentler deformation from wells to barriers is obtained by employing same-temperature deposition method (STDM). With less curvature fluctuation, the V-pit density of InGaN/GaN MQWs grown on sapphire is effectively decreased from 4.5 × 108/cm2 to 2.8 × 108/cm2 with average root-mean-square roughness of 0.55 nm, while threading dislocation density of the GaN-based LD structures grown on FS-GaN is also reduced from 5.9 × 106/cm2 to 1.6 × 106/cm2. Additionally, an ~ 7 nm redshift in photoluminescence emission for LD structure is achieved, accompanied by a ~ 6 times higher emission intensity. A more uniform distribution of emission wavelength along the radial direction is observed and the full width at half maximum is also narrowed, indicating that the STDM is advantageous to effectively eliminate the negative influence of curvature variation and contribute to fabricating high-performance GaN-based light-emitting diodes and LDs.

The curvature changes induced by grafted polymers in microemulsions.

The results on Winsor phases, droplet and bicontinous microemulsions phases with polymer-grafted lipids studied by Small Angle Neutron Scattering (SANS) are reported below, together with the contrast variation techniques used to characterize the average curvature in the system. We have clearly shown that polymer-grafted lipids change the interaction between microemulsion droplets --it need not be just repulsive but could also be attractive. They induce structural changes or bring about complete phase changes as observed visually in the Winsor phases when added in sufficient amounts. In the bicontinous microemulsion phases, the polymer-grafted lipids decrease the persistence length, hence the bending rigidity, increase the apparent average thickness of the film, and cause a complex deformation of the film which brings about a negative curvature change at a semi-local scale. Contrary to the naive prediction that the polymer-grafted lipids should increase membrane rigidity our experiments show a decrease. This is a subtle effect caused by perhaps an indirect coupling between film curvature and concentration fluctuations.

Constraints on long-lived, higher-spin particles from the galaxy bispectrum

The presence of massive particles with spin during inflation induces distinct signatures on correlation functions of primordial curvature fluctuations. In particular, the bispectrum of primordial perturbations obtains an angular dependence determined by the spin of the particle, which can be used to set constraints on the presence of such particles. If these particles are long-lived on super-Hubble scales, as is the case, e.g., for partially massless particles, their imprint on correlation functions of curvature perturbations would be unsuppressed. In this paper, we make a forecast for how well such angular dependence can be constrained by the upcoming EUCLID spectroscopic survey via the measurement of the galaxy bispectrum.

Noncommutative spacetime geometry and one-loop effects in primordial cosmology

We study the effect of noncommutative spacetime geometry on one-loop corrections to the primordial curvature two-point function, arising from various forms of massless spectator matter fields interacting gravitationally with the inflaton. After deforming the algebra of functions on the inflationary background to a spatially noncommutative one, we find that this induces momentum-dependent corrections to one-loop terms which imply that the vacuum fluctuation of the energy-momentum tensor sources that of the curvature fluctuation even for distances beyond horizon scales. The one-loop corrections break spatial isotropy by being functions of the noncommutative parameters lying in the tranverse plane while reducing smoothly to the commutative limit. This furnishes an example of how UV/IR mixing manifests itself in the context of noncommutative field theories defined on inflationary backgrounds, and demonstrates how in principle, the primordial spectrum could carry a signature of nonlocality and anisotropy in the setting of noncommutative spacetime geometry.

Halometry from astrometry

Halometry—mapping out the spectrum, location, and kinematics of nonluminous structures inside the Galactic halo—can be realized via variable weak gravitational lensing of the apparent motions of stars and other luminous background sources. Modern astrometric surveys provide unprecedented positional precision along with a leap in the number of cataloged objects. Astrometry thus offers a new and sensitive probe of collapsed dark matter structures over a wide mass range, from one millionth to several million solar masses. It opens up a window into the spectrum of primordial curvature fluctuations with comoving wavenumbers between 5 Mpc-1 and 105 Mpc-1, scales hitherto poorly constrained. We outline detection strategies based on three classes of observables—multi-blips, templates, and correlations—that take advantage of correlated effects in the motion of many background light sources that are produced through time-domain gravitational lensing. While existing techniques based on single-source observables such as outliers and mono-blips are best suited for point-like lens targets, our methods offer parametric improvements for extended lens targets such as dark matter subhalos. Multi-blip lensing events may also unveil the existence, location, and mass of planets in the outer reaches of the Solar System, where they would likely have escaped detection by direct imaging.

Light primordial exotic compact objects as all dark matter

The radiation emitted by horizonless exotic compact objects (ECOs), such as wormholes, 2-2-holes, fuzzballs, gravastars, boson stars, collapsed polymers, superspinars etc., is expected to be strongly suppressed when compared to the radiation of black holes. If large primordial curvature fluctuations collapse into such objects instead of black holes, they do not evaporate or evaporate much slower than black holes and could thus constitute all of the dark matter with masses below $M < 10^{-16}M_\odot.$ We reevaluate the relevant experimental constraints for light ECOs in this mass range and show that very large new parameter space down to ECO masses $M\sim 10\,{\rm TeV}$ opens up for light primordial dark matter. A new dedicated experimental program is needed to test this mass range of primordial dark matter.

Histogram equalization smoothing for determining threshold accuracy on ancient document image binarization

Ancient documents are inheritance that must be preserved. The documents contain historical, scientific, social, religious information, etc. Converting ancient documents into digital image formats is one of ways to preserve the inheritance and can be stored into a computer. However, images of ancientdocuments have many blemishes caused by age, moisture, flood, etc. Therefore, special techniques are needed for those images to be restored and can improve the legibility of the ancient documents’ images. In this study, the image restoration process uses separation of background and foreground/text on histogram equalization such as research conducted by Fitri Arnia in 2008. Through histogram equalizationimages can be seen the distribution of pixels from the intensity of black color "0" to white "1". The distribution of pixels on histogram equalization describes the curves of foreground/text and curves of background. Among the histogram curves, the determination of thresholdvalues can be done so as to clarify the foreground/text and background areas on images of ancient documents. The lowest point between the two curves is the lowest pixel (local minima) which is used as the threshold value. However, the selection of such threshold values in some cases is very difficult to determine because there are still many fluctuations in the curve at the lowest curve. Therefore, this study proposesa histogram smoothing method in the ancient documents’ images to minimize curvature fluctuations and to determine more accurate threshold values. In this research, average filtering method is used for smoothing the histogram image. This filter successfully refines the histogram and makes the image of the restoration or binary image display the value of the ancient document image readability increases.

Observational constraints on quantum decoherence during inflation

Since inflationary perturbations must generically couple to all degrees of freedom present in the early Universe, it is more realistic to view these fluctuations as an open quantum system interacting with an environment. Then, on very general grounds, their evolution can be modelled with a Lindblad equation. This modified evolution leads to quantum decoherence of the system, as well as to corrections to observables such as the power spectrum of curvature fluctuations. On one hand, current cosmological observations constrain the properties of possible environments and place upper bounds on the interaction strengths. On the other hand, imposing that decoherence completes by the end of inflation implies lower bounds on the interaction strengths. Therefore, the question arises of whether successful decoherence can occur without altering the power spectrum. In this paper, we systematically identify all scenarios in which this is possible. As an illustration, we discuss the case in which the environment consists of a heavy test scalar field. We show that this realises the very peculiar configuration where the correction to the power spectrum is quasi scale invariant. In that case, the presence of the environment improves the fit to the data for some inflationary models but deteriorates it for others. This clearly demonstrates that decoherence is not only of theoretical importance but can also be crucial for astrophysical observations.

Lensing effects in a random inhomogeneous medium

Curvature of the refractive index profile can cause the focusing or defocusing of a propagating beam. Such lensing can have detrimental effects on, for example, imaging through the atmosphere, where it can cause features to appear stretched or regions to appear artificially bright. We consider the problem of describing propagation in the presence of both curvature and stochastic fluctuations in the refractive index profile. For different scenarios motivated by atmospheric propagation data, we derive concise, robust formulas for the mean ray paths that include the effects of turbulence. In addition, for the case of a local maximum of the mean refractive index, we show that the focal length associated with the mean trajectories in the random medium is smaller than in the deterministic setting.

Gravitational wave signatures of inflationary models from Primordial Black Hole dark matter

Primordial Black Holes (PBH) could be the cold dark matter of the universe. They could have arisen from large (order one) curvature fluctuations produced during inflation that reentered the horizon in the radiation era. At reentry, these fluctuations source gravitational waves (GW) via second order anisotropic stresses. These GW, together with those (possibly) sourced during inflation by the same mechanism responsible for the large curvature fluctuations, constitute a primordial stochastic GW background (SGWB) that unavoidably accompanies the PBH formation. We study how the amplitude and the range of frequencies of this signal depend on the statistics (Gaussian versus χ2) of the primordial curvature fluctuations, and on the evolution of the PBH mass function due to accretion and merging. We then compare this signal with the sensitivity of present and future detectors, at PTA and LISA scales. We find that this SGWB will help to probe, or strongly constrain, the early universe mechanism of PBH production. The comparison between the peak mass of the PBH distribution and the peak frequency of this SGWB will provide important information on the merging and accretion evolution of the PBH mass distribution from their formation to the present era. Different assumptions on the statistics and on the PBH evolution also result in different amounts of CMB μ-distortions. Therefore the above results can be complemented by the detection (or the absence) of μ-distortions with an experiment such as PIXIE.

Single field double inflation and primordial black holes

Within the framework of scalar-tensor theories, we study the conditions that allow single field inflation dynamics on small cosmological scales to significantly differ from that of the large scales probed by the observations of cosmic microwave background. The resulting single field double inflation scenario is characterised by two consequent inflation eras, usually separated by a period where the slow-roll approximation fails. At large field values the dynamics of the inflaton is dominated by the interplay between its non-minimal coupling to gravity and the radiative corrections to the inflaton self-coupling. For small field values the potential is, instead, dominated by a polynomial that results in a hilltop inflation. Without relying on the slow-roll approximation, which is invalidated by the appearance of the intermediate stage, we propose a concrete model that matches the current measurements of inflationary observables and employs the freedom granted by the framework on small cosmological scales to give rise to a sizeable population of primordial black holes generated by large curvature fluctuations. We find that these features generally require a potential with a local minimum. We show that the associated primordial black hole mass function is only approximately lognormal.

Primordial black holes from single field models of inflation

Primordial black holes (PBH) have been shown to arise from high peaks in the matter power spectra of multi-field models of inflation. Here we show, with a simple toy model, that it is also possible to generate a peak in the curvature power spectrum of single-field inflation. We assume that the effective dynamics of the inflaton field presents a near-inflection point which slows down the field right before the end of inflation and gives rise to a prominent spike in the fluctuation power spectrum at scales much smaller than those probed by Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) and Large Scale Structure (LSS) observations. This peak will give rise, upon reentry during the radiation era, to PBH via gravitational collapse. The mass and abundance of these PBH is such that they could constitute the totality of the Dark Matter today. We satisfy all CMB and LSS constraints and predict a very broad range of PBH masses. Some of these PBH are light enough that they will evaporate before structure formation, leaving behind a large curvature fluctuation on small scales. This broad mass distribution of PBH as Dark Matter will be tested in the future by AdvLIGO and LISA interferometers.

Boost breaking in the EFT of inflation

If time-translations are spontaneously broken, so are boosts. This symmetry breaking pattern can be non-linearly realized by either just the Goldstone boson of time translations, or by four Goldstone bosons associated with time translations and boosts. In this paper we extend the Effective Field Theory of Multifield Inflation to consider the case in which the additional Goldstone bosons associated with boosts are light and coupled to the Goldstone boson of time translations. The symmetry breaking pattern forces a coupling to curvature so that the mass of the additional Goldstone bosons is predicted to be equal to √2H in the vast majority of the parameter space where they are light. This pattern therefore offers a natural way of generating self-interacting particles with Hubble mass during inflation. After constructing the general effective Lagrangian, we study how these particles mix and interact with the curvature fluctuations, generating potentially detectable non-Gaussian signals.

Undulations Drive Domain Registration from the Two Membrane Leaflets

Phase separation in biological membranes plays an important role in protein targeting and transmembrane signaling. Its occurrence in both membrane leaflets commonly gives rise to matching liquid or liquid-ordered domains in the opposing monolayers. The underlying mechanism of such co-localization is not fully understood. The decrease of the line tension around the thicker ordered domain constitutes an important driving force. Yet, robust domain coupling requires an additional energy source, which we have now identified as thermal undulations. Our theoretical analysis of elastic deformations in a lipid bilayer shows that stiffer lipid domains tend to distribute into areas with lower fluctuations of monolayer curvature. These areas naturally align in the opposing monolayers. Thus, coupling requires both membrane leafs to display a heterogeneity in splay rigidities. The heterogeneity may either originate from intrinsic lipid properties or be acquired by adsorption of peripheral molecules. Undulations and line tension act synergistically: the gain in energy due a minimized line tension is proportional to domain radius and thus primarily fuels the registration of smaller domains; whereas the energetic contribution of undulations increases with membrane area and thus primarily acts to coalesce larger domains.

Black holes as collapsed polymers

We propose that a large Schwarzschild black hole (BH) is a bound state of highly excited, long, closed strings at the Hagedorn temperature. According to our proposal, the interior of the BH consists, on average, of a uniform distribution of matter with low curvature and large quantum fluctuations about the average. This proposal represents a dramatic departure from any conventional state of matter and from the longstanding expectation that the interior of a BH should look like empty space except for a very small, dense core (the singularity). Standard effective field theory in terms of the metric and other quantum fields is incapable of describing such a state in a meaningful way. However, in polymer physics, such states can be described by a mean field theory in terms of the polymer concentration. We therefore propose that the interior of the BH be described in terms of an effective free‐energy density which is a function of the string concentration or entropy density; this density being a highly non‐perturbative quantity in terms of the metric and other quantum fields. For a macroscopic BH, our proposed free‐energy density contains only linear and quadratic terms, in analogy with that of the theory of collapsed polymers. We calculate the coefficient of the linear term under the accepted assumption that the dominant interaction of the strings at large distances is the gravitational interaction and the coefficient of the quadratic term by relying on explicit string calculations to determine the rate of interaction in terms of the string coupling. Using the effective free energy, we find that the size of the bound state is determined dynamically by the string attractive interactions and derive scaling relations for the entropy, energy and size of the bound state. We show that these agree with the scaling relations of the BH; in particular, with the area law for the BH entropy. The fact that the entropy is not extensive is a result of having strong correlations in the interior state, and the specific form of the entropy‐area law originates from the inverse scaling of the effective temperature with the bound‐state radius. We also find that the energy density of the bound state is equal to its pressure.

Preheating in an asymptotically safe quantum field theory

We consider reheating in a class of asymptotically safe quantum field theories recently studied in \cite{Litim:2014uca, Litim:2015iea}. These theories allow for an inflationary phase in the very early universe. Inflation ends with a period of reheating. Since the models contain many scalar fields which are intrinsically coupled to the inflaton there is the possibility of parametric resonance instability in the production of these fields, and the danger that the induced curvature fluctuations will become too large. Here we show that the parametric instability indeed arises, and that hence the energy transfer from the inflaton condensate to fluctuating fields is rapid. Demanding that the curvature fluctuations induced by the parametrically amplified entropy modes do not exceed the upper observational bounds puts a lower bound on the number of fields which the model of Ref.~\cite{Litim:2014uca, Litim:2015iea} must contain. This bound also depends on the total number of e-foldings of the inflationary phase.

Warm ekpyrosis

We propose a mechanism to generate a nearly scale-invariant spectrum of adiabatic scalar perturbations about a stable, ekpyrotic background. The key ingredient is a coupling between a single ekpyrotic field and a perfect fluid of ultra-relativistic matter. This coupling introduces a friction term into the equation of motion for the field, opposing the Hubble anti-friction, which can be chosen such that an exactly scale-invariant (or nearly scale-invariant) spectrum of adiabatic density perturbations is continuously produced throughout the ekpyrotic phase. This mechanism eliminates the need for a second (entropic) scalar field and hence any need for introducing a second phase for converting entropic into curvature fluctuations. It also reduces the constraints on the equation of state during the ekpyrotic phase and, thereby, the need for parametric fine-tuning.

Bouncing cosmologies in geometries with positively curved spatial sections

Background boucing cosmologies in the framework of General Relativity, driven by a single scalar field filling the Universe, and with a quasi-matter domination period, i.e., depicting the so-called Matter Bounce Scenario, are reconstructed for geometries with positive spatial curvature. These cosmologies lead to a nearly flat power spectrum of the curvature fluctuations in co-moving coordinates for modes that leave the Hubble radius during the quasi-matter domination period, and whose spectral index and its running, which are related with the effective Equation of State parameter given by the quotient of the pressure over the energy density, are compatible with observational data.

Evolution of a superfluid vortex filament tangle driven by the Gross-Pitaevskii equation.

The development and decay of a turbulent vortex tangle driven by the Gross-Pitaevskii equation is studied. Using a recently developed accurate and robust tracking algorithm, all quantized vortices are extracted from the fields. The Vinen's decay law for the total vortex length with a coefficient that is in quantitative agreement with the values measured in helium II is observed. The topology of the tangle is then investigated showing that linked rings may appear during the evolution. The tracking also allows for determining the statistics of small-scale quantities of vortex lines, exhibiting large fluctuations of curvature and torsion. Finally, the temporal evolution of the Kelvin wave spectrum is obtained providing evidence of the development of a weak-wave turbulence cascade.

Cosmological flux noise and measured noise power spectra in SQUIDs

The understanding of the origin of 1/f magnetic flux noise commonly observed in superconducting devices such as SQUIDs and qubits is still a major unsolved puzzle. Here we discuss the possibility that a significant part of the observed low-frequency flux noise measured in these devices is ultimately seeded by cosmological fluctuations. We consider a theory where a primordial flux noise field left over in unchanged form from an early inflationary or quantum gravity epoch of the universe intrinsically influences the phase difference in SQUIDs and qubits. The perturbation seeds generated by this field can explain in a quantitatively correct way the form and amplitude of measured low-frequency flux noise spectra in SQUID devices if one takes as a source of fluctuations the primordial power spectrum of curvature fluctuations as measured by the Planck collaboration. Our theoretical predictions are in excellent agreement with recent low-frequency flux noise measurements of various experimental groups. Magnetic flux noise, so far mainly considered as a nuisance for electronic devices, may thus contain valuable information about fluctuation spectra in the very early universe.