No Arabic abstract
In a recent article, a simple `spherical bubble toy model for a spatially varying vacuum energy density was introduced, and type Ia supernovae data was used to constrain it. Here we generalize the model to allow for the fact that we may not necessarily be at the centre of a region with a given set of cosmological parameters, and discuss the constraints on these models coming from Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation data. We find tight constraints on possible spatial variations of the vacuum energy density for any significant deviations from the centre of the bubble and we comment on the relevance of our results.
We try to constrain the noncommutativity length scale of the theoretical model given in Ref. [1] using the observational data from ACBAR, CBI and five year WMAP. The noncommutativity parameter is not constrained by WMAP data, however ACBAR and CBI data restrict the lower bound of its energy scale to be around 10 TeV. We also derive an expression for the amount of non-causality coming from spacetime noncommutativity for the fields of primordial scalar perturbations that are space-like separated. The amount of causality violation for these field fluctuations are direction dependent.
Vacuum energy remains the simplest model of dark energy which could drive the accelerated expansion of the Universe without necessarily introducing any new degrees of freedom. Inhomogeneous vacuum energy is necessarily interacting in general relativity. Although the four-velocity of vacuum energy is undefined, an interacting vacuum has an energy transfer and the vacuum energy defines a particular foliation of spacetime with spatially homogeneous vacuum energy in cosmological solutions. It is possible to give a consistent description of vacuum dynamics and in particular the relativistic equations of motion for inhomogeneous perturbations given a covariant prescription for the vacuum energy, or equivalently the energy transfer four-vector, and we construct gauge-invariant vacuum perturbations. We show that any dark energy cosmology can be decomposed into an interacting vacuum+matter cosmology whose inhomogeneous perturbations obey simple first-order equations.
In this work we investigate the matrix elements of the energy-momentum tensor for massless on-shell states in four-dimensional unitary, local, and Poincare covariant quantum field theories. We demonstrate that these matrix elements can be parametrised in terms of covariant multipoles of the Lorentz generators, and that this gives rise to a form factor decomposition in which the helicity dependence of the states is factorised. Using this decomposition we go on to explore some of the consequences for conformal field theories, deriving the explicit analytic conditions imposed by conformal symmetry, and using examples to illustrate that they uniquely fix the form of the matrix elements. We also provide new insights into the constraints imposed by the existence of massless particles, showing in particular that massless free theories are necessarily conformal.
The early dark energy (EDE) scenario aims to increase the value of the Hubble constant ($H_0$) inferred from cosmic microwave background (CMB) data over that found in $Lambda$CDM, via the introduction of a new form of energy density in the early universe. The EDE component briefly accelerates cosmic expansion just prior to recombination, which reduces the physical size of the sound horizon imprinted in the CMB. Previous work has found that non-zero EDE is not preferred by Planck CMB power spectrum data alone, which yield a 95% confidence level (CL) upper limit $f_{rm EDE} < 0.087$ on the maximal fractional contribution of the EDE field to the cosmic energy budget. In this paper, we fit the EDE model to CMB data from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) Data Release 4. We find that a combination of ACT, large-scale Planck TT (similar to WMAP), Planck CMB lensing, and BAO data prefers the existence of EDE at $>99.7$% CL: $f_{rm EDE} = 0.091^{+0.020}_{-0.036}$, with $H_0 = 70.9^{+1.0}_{-2.0}$ km/s/Mpc (both 68% CL). From a model-selection standpoint, we find that EDE is favored over $Lambda$CDM by these data at roughly $3sigma$ significance. In contrast, a joint analysis of the full Planck and ACT data yields no evidence for EDE, as previously found for Planck alone. We show that the preference for EDE in ACT alone is driven by its TE and EE power spectrum data. The tight constraint on EDE from Planck alone is driven by its high-$ell$ TT power spectrum data. Understanding whether these differing constraints are physical in nature, due to systematics, or simply a rare statistical fluctuation is of high priority. The best-fit EDE models to ACT and Planck exhibit coherent differences across a wide range of multipoles in TE and EE, indicating that a powerful test of this scenario is anticipated with near-future data from ACT and other ground-based experiments.
In this paper we extend a new method to measure possible variation of the speed of light by using Baryon Acoustic Oscillations and the Hubble function presented in our earlier paper [V. Salzano, M. P. Dc{a}browski, and R. Lazkoz, Phys. Rev. D93, 063521 (2016)] onto an inhomogeneous model of the universe. The method relies on the fact that there is a simple relation between the angular diameter distance $(D_{A})$ maximum and the Hubble function $(H)$ evaluated at the same maximum-condition redshift, which includes speed of light $c$. One limit of such method was the assumption of null spatial curvature (even if we showed that even a non-zero curvature would have negligible effects). Here, we move one step further: we explicitly assume a model with intrinsic non-null curvature, and calculate the exact relation between $D_{A}$ and $H$ in this case. Then, we evaluate if current or future missions such as SKA can be sensitive enough to detect any such kind of spatial variation of $c$ which can perhaps be related to the recently observed spatial variation of the fine structure constant (an effect known as $alpha$-dipole).