No Arabic abstract
We present a model for the Universe in which quantum anomalies are argued to play an important dual role: they are responsible for generating matter-antimatter asymmetry, but also provide time-dependent contributions to the vacuum energy density of running-vacuum type, which drive the Universe evolution. During the inflationary phase of a string-inspired Universe, and its subsequent exit, the existence of primordial gravitational waves induce gravitational anomalies, which couple to the Kalb-Ramond (KR)axion field of the massless gravitational string multiplet. Such anomalous CP violating interactions have two important effects: first, they lead to contributions to the vacuum energy density of the form appearing in the running vacuum model (RVM) framework, proportional to both the square and the fourth power of the effective Hubble parameter $H$, the $H^4$ terms being associated with anomaly-induced inflation within the RVM framework. Second, there is an undiluted KR axion at the end of inflation, which plays an important role in generating matter-antimatter asymmetry through baryogenesis via leptogenesis in models with heavy right handed neutrinos. As the Universe exits inflation and enters a radiation dominated era, the generation of chiral fermionic matter is responsible for the cancellation of gravitational anomalies, thus restoring diffeomorphism invariance for the matter/radiation (quantum) theory, as required for consistency. Chiral U(1) anomalies may remain uncompensated, though, during matter/radiation dominance, providing RVM-like $H^2$ and $H^4$ contributions to the Universe energy density. Finally, in the current era, gravitational anomalies resurface, leading to much weaker RVM-like $H_0^2$ contributions to the vacuum energy density.Our model favours axionic Dark Matter,the source of which can be the KR axion.
We discuss a connection between gravitational-wave physics, quantum theory anomalies, right-handed (sterile) neutrinos, (spontaneous) CPT Violation and Leptogenesis, within the framework of string-inspired cosmological models. In particular, we present a scenario, according to which (primordial) gravitational waves induce gravitational anomalies during inflation. This, in turn, results in the existence of an undiluted (at the exit of inflation/beginning of radiation era) bakcground of the Kalb-Ramond (KR) axion of the massless bosonic string gravitational multiplet. The latter may violate spontaneously CP and CPT symmetries, and induce leptogenesis during the radiation-dominated era in models involving right-handed neutrinos. The so-generated lepton asymmetry may then be communicated to the baryon sector by appropriate baryon-minus-lepton-number (B - L)-conserving, but (B + L)-violating, (sphaleron) processes in the Standard Model sector, thus leading to matter dominance over antimatter in the Universe.In the current (approximately de Sitter) era, the KR axion background may provide a source for an axionic dark matter in the Universe, through its mixing with other axions that are abundant in string models. As an interesting byproduct of our analysis, we demonstrate that the anomalies contribute to the vacuum energy density of the Universe terms of running-vacuum type, proportional to the square of the Hubble parameter, $H^2$.
Current astronomical observations are successfully explained by the present cosmological paradigm based on the concordance model ($Lambda_0$CDM + Inflation). However, such a scenario is composed of a heterogeneous mix of ingredients for describing the different stages of cosmological evolution. Particularly, it does not give an unified explanation connecting the early and late time accelerating inflationary regimes which are separated by many aeons. Other challenges to the concordance model include: a singularity at early times or the emergence of the Universe from the quantum gravity regime, the graceful exit from inflation to the standard radiation phase, as well as, the coincidence and cosmological constant problems. We show here that a simple running vacuum model or a time-dependent vacuum may provide insight to some of the above open questions (including a complete cosmic history), and also can explain the observed matter-antimatter asymmetry just after the initial deflationary period.
A CPT violating decoherence scenario can easily account for all the experimental evidence in the neutrino sector including LSND. In this work it is argued that this framework can also accommodate the Dark Energy content of the Universe, as well as the observed matter-antimatter asymmetry.
I review a string-inspired cosmological model with gravitational anomalies in its early epochs, which is based on fields from the (bosonic) massless gravitational multiplet of strings, in particular gravitons and Kalb Ramond (KR), string-model independent, axions (the dilaton is assumed constant). I show how condensation of primordial gravitational waves, which are generared at the very early eras immediately after the big bang, can lead to inflation of the so called running vacuum model (RVM) type, without external inflatons. The role of the slow-roll field is played by the KR axion, but it does not drive inflation. The non-linearities in the anomaly terms do. Chiral fermionic matter excitations appear at the end of this RVM inflation, as a result of the decay of the RVM vacuum, and are held responsible for the cancellation of the primordial gravitational anomalies. Chiral anomalies, however, survive in the post-inflationary epochs, and can lead to the generation of a non perturbative mass for the KR axion, which could thus play the role of dark matter in this Universe. As a result of the condensed gravitational anomaly, there is a Lorentz-invariance violating KR axion background, which remains undiluted during the RVM inflation, and can lead to baryogenesis through leptogenesis in the radiation era, in models with sterile right-handed neutrinos. I also discuss the phenomenology of the model in the modern era, paying particular attention to linking it with a version of RVM, called type II RVM, which arguably can alleviate observed tensions in the current-epoch cosmological data.
In this letter, we elaborate further on a Cosmological Running-Vacuum type model for the Universe, suggested previously by the authors within the context of a string-inspired effective theory in the presence of a Kalb-Ramond (KR) gravitational axion field which descends from the antisymmetric tensor of the massless gravitational string multiplet. In the presence of this field, which has anomalous CP violating interactions with the gravitons, primordial gravitational waves induce gravitational anomalies, which in turn are responsible for the appearance of $H^2$ and $H^4$ contributions to the vacuum energy density, these terms being characteristic of generic running-vacuum-model (RVM) type, where $H$ is the Hubble parameter. In this work we prove in detail the appearance of the $H^4$ terms due to gravitational-anomaly-induced condensates in the energy density of the primordial Universe, which can self-consistently induce inflation, and subsequent exit from it, according to the generic features of RVM. We also argue in favour of the robustness of our results, which were derived within an effective low-energy field theory approach, against Ultra Violet completion of the theory. During the radiation and matter-dominated eras, gravitational anomalies cancel, as required for the consistency of the quantum matter/radiation field theory. However, chiral and QCD-axion-type anomalies survive and have important consequences for both cosmic magnetogenesis and axionic dark matter in the Universe. Finally, the stringy RVM scenario presented here predicts quintessence-like dynamical dark energy for the current Universe, which is compatible with the existing fitting analyses of such model against observations