Evolution Of Cosmological Perturbations Research Articles

Solution of the size and horizon problems from classical string geometry

In a recent paper we developed a string cosmology background from classical string geometry. Here, we show that this background yields a solution to the size and horizon problems of Standard Big Bang cosmology while remaining compatible with the Transplanckian Censorship Conjecture. We also take a first look at the evolution of cosmological perturbations in this model.

Evolution of cosmological perturbations in the models with interacting dynamical dark energy

Evolution of cosmological perturbations is considered in the model with dynamical dark energy which non-gravitationally interacts with dark matter. The dark energy equation of state parameter (EoS) is varying in time and is parameterized by its adiabatic sound speed. Such model of interacting dark energy has advantages over model with constant EoS, because it avoids non-adiabatic instabilities of dark energy at radiation dominated epoch for certain types of interaction in dark sector. The stability conditions for solutions of equations of dark energy perturbations were derived. The impact of strength of additional interaction between dark components on the evolution of density and velocity perturbations in them is analysed for quintessence and phantom types of dark energy.

Testing modified gravity at cosmological distances with LISA standard sirens

Modifications of General Relativity leave their imprint both on the cosmic expansion history through a non-trivial dark energy equation of state, and on the evolution of cosmological perturbations in the scalar and in the tensor sectors. In particular, the modification in the tensor sector gives rise to a notion of gravitational-wave (GW) luminosity distance, different from the standard electromagnetic luminosity distance, that can be studied with standard sirens at GW detectors such as LISA or third-generation ground based experiments. We discuss the predictions for modified GW propagation from some of the best studied theories of modified gravity, such as Horndeski or the more general degenerate higher order scalar-tensor (DHOST) theories, non-local infrared modifications of gravity, bigravity theories and the corresponding phenomenon of GW oscillation, as well as theories with extra or varying dimensions. We show that modified GW propagation is a completely generic phenomenon in modified gravity. We then use a simple parametrization of the effect in terms of two parameters (Ξ0,n), that is shown to fit well the results from a large class of models, to study the prospects of observing modified GW propagation using supermassive black hole binaries as standard sirens with LISA . We construct mock source catalogs and perform detailed Markov Chain Monte Carlo studies of the likelihood obtained from LISA standard sirens alone, as well as by combining them with CMB, BAO and SNe data to reduce the degeneracies between cosmological parameters. We find that the combination of LISA with the other cosmological datasets allows one to measure the parameter Ξ0 that characterizes modified GW propagation to the percent level accuracy, sufficient to test several modified gravity theories. LISA standard sirens can also improve constraints on GW oscillations induced by extra field content by about three orders of magnitude relative to the current capability of ground detectors. We also update the forecasts on the accuracy on H0 and on the dark-energy equation of state using more recent estimates for the LISA sensitivity.

On the evolution and stability of cosmological perturbations in higher order scalar–tensor theories of gravity

We study a new type of extended theory of gravity in the framework of general scalar–tensor theories in which the higher order terms of curvature are coupled with a scalar field and its derivatives. We analyze the stability and evolution of cosmological perturbations in this setup. For this purpose, we perturb the Hubble parameter, matter density, and scalar field to check stability and evolution of perturbations to first order. In this framework, we investigate stability conditions for de Sitter and power law solutions and we examine viability of cosmological evolution of these perturbations. We consider some specific f(R) models and show that the stability analysis gives some constraints on the parameters of these models.

First constraint on the neutrino-induced phase shift in the spectrum of baryon acoustic oscillations

The existence of the cosmic neutrino background is a fascinating prediction of the hot big bang model. These neutrinos were a dominant component of the energy density in the early universe and, therefore, played an important role in the evolution of cosmological perturbations. The energy density of the cosmic neutrino background has been measured using the abundances of light elements and the anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). A complementary and more robust probe is a distinct shift in the temporal phase of sound waves in the primordial plasma which is produced by fluctuations in the neutrino density and has recently been detected in the CMB. In this paper, we report on the first constraint on this neutrino-induced phase shift in the spectrum of baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) of the BOSS DR12 data. Constraining the acoustic scale using Planck data while marginalizing over the effects of neutrinos in the CMB, we find a non-zero phase shift at greater than 95\% confidence. We also demonstrate the robustness of this result in simulations and forecasts. Besides providing a new test of the cosmic neutrino background, our work is the first application of the BAO signal to early universe physics and a non-trivial confirmation of the standard cosmological history.

Inflation with mixed helicities and its observational imprint on CMB

In the framework of effective field theories with prominent helicity-0 and helicity-1 fields coupled to each other via a dimension-3 operator, we study the dynamics of inflation driven by the helicity-0 mode, with a given potential energy, as well as the evolution of cosmological perturbations, influenced by the presence of a mixing term between both helicities. In this scenario, the temporal component of the helicity-1 mode is an auxiliary field and can be integrated out in terms of the time derivative of the helicity-0 mode, so that the background dynamics effectively reduces to that in single-field inflation modulated by a parameter $\beta$ associated to the coupling between helicity-0 and helicity-1 modes. We discuss the evolution of a longitudinal scalar perturbation $\psi$ and an inflaton fluctuation $\delta \phi$, and explicitly show that a particular combination of these two, which corresponds to an isocurvature mode, is subject to exponential suppression by the vector mass comparable to the Hubble expansion rate during inflation. Furthermore, we find that the effective single-field description corrected by $\beta$ also holds for the power spectrum of curvature perturbations generated during inflation. We compute the standard inflationary observables such as the scalar spectral index $n_s$ and the tensor-to-scalar ratio $r$ and confront several inflaton potentials with the recent observational data provided by Planck 2018. Our results show that the coupling between helicity-0 and helicity-1 modes can lead to a smaller value of the tensor-to-scalar ratio especially for small-field inflationary models, so our scenario exhibits even better compatibility with the current observational data.

Fluctuations through a vibrating bounce

We study the evolution of cosmological perturbations in a non-singular bouncing cosmology with a bounce phase which has superimposed oscillations of the scale factor. We identify length scales for which the final spectrum of fluctuations obtains imprints of the non-trivial bounce dynamics. These imprints in the spectrum are manifested in the form of damped oscillation features at scales smaller than a characteristic value and an increased reddening of the spectrum at all the scales as the number of small bounces increases.

On the gravitational instability in the Newtonian limit of MOG

We have found some analytical cosmological solutions to MOdified Gravity (MOG). These solutions describe different evolutionary epochs of an isotropic and homogeneous universe. During each epoch, the evolution of cosmological perturbation is studied in the Newtonian framework and compared with the corresponding results of GR.

Cosmology with a light ghost

We study the creation and evolution of cosmological perturbations in renormalizable quadratic gravity with a Weyl term. We adopt a prescription that implies the stability of the vacuum at the price of introducing a massive spin-two ghost state, leading to the loss of unitarity. The theory may still be predictive regardless the interpretation of non-unitary processes provided that their rate is negligible compared to the Universe expansion rate. This implies that the ghost is effectively stable. In such a setup, there are two scalar degrees of freedom excited during inflation. The first one is the usual curvature perturbation whose power spectrum appears to coincide with that of single-field inflation. The second one is a scalar component of the ghost encoded in the shift vector of the metric in the uniform inflaton gauge. The amplitudes of primordial tensor and vector perturbations are strongly suppressed. After inflation the ghost field starts to oscillate and its energy density shortly becomes dominant in the Universe. For all ghost masses allowed by laboratory constraints ghosts should have ``overclosed'' the Universe at temperatures higher than that of primordial nucleosynthesis. Thus, the model with the light Weyl ghost is ruled out.

Evolution of density and velocity profiles of dark matter and dark energy in spherical voids

We analyse the evolution of cosmological perturbations which leads to the formation of large isolated voids in the Universe. We assume that initial perturbations are spherical and all components of the Universe (radiation, matter and dark energy) are continuous media with perfect fluid energy--momentum tensors, which interact only gravitationally. Equations of the evolution of perturbations for every component in the comoving to cosmological background reference frame are obtained from equations of energy and momentum conservation and Einstein's ones and are integrated numerically. Initial conditions are set at the early stage of evolution in the radiation-dominated epoch, when the scale of perturbation is much larger than the particle horizon. Results show how the profiles of density and velocity of matter and dark energy are formed and how they depend on parameters of dark energy and initial conditions. In particular, it is shown that final matter density and velocity amplitudes change within range $\sim$4-7\% when the value of equation-of-state parameter of dark energy $w$ vary in the range from --0.8 to --1.2, and change within $\sim$1\% only when the value of effective sound speed of dark energy vary over all allowable range of its values.

Evolution of cosmological perturbations and the production of non-Gaussianities through a nonsingular bounce: Indications for a no-go theorem in single field matter bounce cosmologies

Assuming that curvature perturbations and gravitational waves originally arise from vacuum fluctuations in a matter-dominated phase of contraction, we study the dynamics of the cosmological perturbations evolving through a nonsingular bouncing phase described by a generic single scalar field Lagrangian minimally coupled to Einstein gravity. In order for such a model to be consistent with the current upper limits on the tensor-to-scalar ratio, there must be an enhancement of the curvature fluctuations during the bounce phase. We show that, while it remains possible to enlarge the amplitude of curvature perturbations due to the nontrivial background evolution, this growth is very limited because of the conservation of curvature perturbations on super-Hubble scales. We further perform a general analysis of the evolution of primordial non-Gaussianities through the bounce phase. By studying the general form of the bispectrum we show that the non-Gaussianity parameter ${f}_{\mathrm{NL}}$ (which is of order unity before the bounce phase) is enhanced during the bounce phase if the curvature fluctuations grow. Hence, in such nonsingular bounce models with matter given by a single scalar field, there appears to be a tension between obtaining a small enough tensor-to-scalar ratio and not obtaining a value of ${f}_{\mathrm{NL}}$ in excess of the current upper bounds. This conclusion may be considered as a ``no-go'' theorem that rules out any single field matter bounce cosmology starting with vacuum initial conditions for the fluctuations.

Kinetic theory and evolution of cosmological fluctuations with neutrino number asymmetry

We derive a kinetic equation for chiral matter at non-zero chemical potential that governs the response of the parity odd part of the distribution function to perturbations of the Robertson-Walker metric. The derivation is based on a recent evaluation of the gravitational polarization tensor at non-zero chemical potential. We also provide the equations for gravity waves that follow from the anisotropic stress tensor describing the lepton asymmetry. These equations can be used to assess the effects that a non-zero neutrino chemical potential would have on the evolution of cosmological perturbations.

Precision cosmology as a neutrino laboratory

I give an overview of the effects of neutrinos on cosmology, focussing in particular on the role played by massive neutrinos in the evolution of cosmological perturbations. I discuss how recent observations of the cosmic microwave background anisotropies and the large-scale structure of galaxies can probe neutrino masses with greater precision than current laboratory experiments. I describe several new techniques that will be used to probe cosmology in the future, and also some recent advances in the computation of the nonlinear matter power spectrum and related observables.

The importance of slow-roll corrections during multi-field inflation

We re-examine the importance of slow-roll corrections during the evolution of cosmological perturbations in models of multi-field inflation. We find that in many instances the presence of light degrees of freedom leads to situations in which next to leading order slow-roll corrections become significant. Examples where we expect such corrections to be crucial include models in which modes exit the Hubble radius while the inflationary trajectory undergoes an abrupt turn in field space, or during a phase transition. We illustrate this with several examples — hybrid inflation, double quadratic inflation and double quartic inflation. Utilizing both analytic estimates and full numerical results, we find that corrections can be as large as 20%. Our results have implications for many existing models in the literature, as these corrections must be included to obtain accurate observational predictions — particularly given the level of accuracy expected from CMB experiments such as Planck.

Bouncing models with a cosmological constant

Bouncing models have been proposed by many authors as a completion, or even as an alternative to inflation for the description of the very early and dense Universe. However, most bouncing models contain a contracting phase from a very large and rarefied state, where dark energy might have had an important role as it has today in accelerating our large Universe. In that case, its presence can modify the initial conditions and evolution of cosmological perturbations, changing the known results already obtained in the literature concerning their amplitude and spectrum. In this paper, we assume the simplest and most appealing candidate for dark energy, the cosmological constant, and evaluate its influence on the evolution of cosmological perturbations during the contracting phase of a bouncing model, which also contains a scalar field with a potential allowing background solutions with pressure and energy density satisfying p = w*rho, w being a constant. An initial adiabatic vacuum state can be set at the end of domination by the cosmological constant, and an almost scale invariant spectrum of perturbations is obtained for w~0, which is the usual result for bouncing models. However, the presence of the cosmological constant induces oscillations and a running towards a tiny red-tilted spectrum for long wavelength perturbations.

Neutrino Mass in Cosmology: Status and Prospects

I give an overview of the effects of neutrino masses in cosmology, focusing on the role they play in the evolution of cosmological perturbations. I discuss how recent observations of the cosmic microwave background anisotropies and the large-scale matter distribution can probe neutrino masses with greater precision than current laboratory experiments. I describe several new techniques that will be used to probe cosmology in the future, as well as recent advances in the computation of the nonlinear matter-power spectrum and related observables.

COSMOS weak-lensing constraints on modified gravity

The observed acceleration of the universe, explained through dark energy, could alternatively be explained through a modification of gravity that would also induce modifications in the evolution of cosmological perturbations. We use new weak lensing data from the COSMOS survey to test for deviations from General Relativity. The departure from GR is parametrized in a model-independent way that consistently parametrizes the two-point cosmic shear amplitude and growth. Using CMB priors, we perform a likelihood analysis. We find constraints on the amplitude of the signal that do not indicate a deviation from General Relativity.

Evolution of cosmological perturbations in a renormalization-group-driven inflationary scenario

A gauge-invariant, linear cosmological perturbation theory of an almost homogeneous and isotropic universe with dynamically evolving Newton constant G and cosmological constant $\Lambda$ is presented. The equations governing the evolution of the comoving fractional spatial gradients of the matter density, G and $\Lambda$ are thus obtained. Explicit solutions are discussed in cosmologies, featuring an accelerated expansion, where both G and $\Lambda$ vary according to renormalization group equations in the vicinity of an ultraviolet fixed point. Finally, a similar analysis is carried out in the late universe regime described by the part of the renormalization group trajectory close to the gaussian fixed point.

BOUNCING MODELS WITH A COSMOLOGICAL CONSTANT

Most bouncing models contain a contracting phase from a very large and rarefied state, where dark energy might have had an important role. If this is that case, the presence of dark energy can modify the initial conditions and evolution of cosmological perturbations, changing the known results already obtained in the literature concerning their amplitude and spectrum. In this work, we assume the simplest and most appealing candidate for dark energy, the cosmological constant, and study its influence on the evolution of cosmological perturbations during the contracting phase of a bouncing model, containing also a perfect fluid with constant equation of state parameter w. We show that, due to the vacuum state choice we have to make when a cosmological constant is present, the spectrum of the perturbations are substantially altered. We conclude that, in this case, the presence of a stiff matter fluid in the contracting phase is needed in order to have a scale invariant spectrum of perturbations in the expanding phase.

How to optimally parametrize deviations from general relativity in the evolution of cosmological perturbations

The next generation of weak lensing surveys will trace the growth of large scale perturbations through a sequence of epochs, offering an opportunity to test General Relativity (GR) on cosmological scales. We review in detail the parametrization used in MGCAMB to describe the modified growth expected in alternative theories of gravity and generalized dark energy models. We highlight its advantages and examine several theoretical aspects. In particular, we show that the same set of equations can be consistently used on super-horizon and sub-horizon linear scales. We also emphasize the sensitivity of data to scale-dependent features in the growth pattern, and propose using Principal Component Analysis to converge on a practical set of parameters which is most likely to detect departures from GR. The connection with other parametrizations is also discussed.