Detecting relics of a thermal gravitational wave background in the early Universe

A thermal gravitational wave background can be produced in the early Universe if a radiation dominated epoch precedes the usual inflationary stage. This background provides a unique way to study the initial state of the Universe. We discuss the imprint of this thermal spectra of gravitons on the cosmic microwave background (CMB) power spectra, and its possible detection by CMB observations. Assuming the inflationary stage is a pure de Sitter expansion we find that, if the number of e-folds of inflation is smaller than 65, the signal of this thermal spectrum can be detected by the observations of Planck and PolarBear experiments, or the planned EPIC experiments. This bound can be even looser if inflation-like stage is the sub-exponential.     

Horizon feedback inflation

We consider the effect of the Gibbons–Hawking radiation on the inflaton in the situation where it is coupled to a large number of spectator fields. We argue that this will lead to two important effects – a thermal contribution to the potential and a gradual change in parameters in the Lagrangian which results from thermodynamic and energy conservation arguments. We present a scenario of hilltop inflation where the field starts trapped at the origin before slowly experiencing a phase transition during which the field extremely slowly moves towards its zero temperature expectation value. We show that it is possible to obtain enough e-folds of expansion as well as the correct spectrum of perturbations without hugely fine-tuned parameters in the potential (albeit with many spectator fields). We also comment on how initial conditions for inflation can arise naturally in this situation.     

Pre-inflationary homogenization of scalar field cosmologies

We consider the evolution of covariant and gauge invariant linear density perturbations of scalar field cosmologies using a dynamical systems? approach. We find conditions for which the perturbations decay in time, so that the spacetime approaches a homogeneous solution which inflates, for quadratic and exponential potentials. This pre-inflationary homogenization is found to be stable in the potentials? parameter spaces. Furthermore, in each case, we determine the minimum size of the resultant homogeneous patch and show that, for quadratic potentials, the resulting inflationary solutions include those with the necessary number of e-folds.     

Influence of polarization and material on Brownian thermal noise of binary grating reflectors

Grating reflectors are a potential low-noise replacement for amorphous multilayer mirrors. We investigate the influence of polarization and refractive index on Brownian thermal noise of binary grating reflectors using Maxwell's stress tensor. Our results demonstrate that the refractive index of the grating material is a critical parameter for thermal noise in these structures. In contrast to multilayer mirrors, a low coating thickness does not necessarily lead to a low thermal noise amplitude for structures with low refractive index. We find that an improved noise performance of grating reflectors requires materials of refractive index ?2.5. We present a factorized expression for the thermal noise of grating reflectors made of arbitrary materials by simply scaling the noise amplitude with the related material parameters.     

Analysing Hessence Intermediate and Logamediate Universe in Loop Quantum Cosmological Background

We have discussed here Hessence inflation in Loop Quantum Cosmological background. In this work, we have emphasized on late times, taking into account various slow-roll conditions. This model has been constructed taking intermediate and logamediate scale factors. In both cases the forms of hessence field, potential, number of e-folds, slow-roll parameters are manipulated by taking the dissipative co-efficient Γ =Γ₀, where Γ₀ > 0 is a constant, in accordance with second law of thermodynamics.     

Inflation with improved D3-brane potential and the fine tunings associated with the model

We revisit our earlier investigations of the brane–antibrane inflation in a warped deformed conifold background, reported in Phys. Lett. B 674, 131 (2009), where now we include the contributions to the inflation potential arising from imaginary anti-self-dual (IASD) fluxes including the term with irrational scaling dimension discovered recently in  and . We observe that these corrections to the effective potential help in relaxing the severe fine tunings associated with the earlier analysis. Required number of e-folds, observational constraint on COBE normalization and low value of the tensor to scalar ratio are achieved which is consistent with WMAP seven years data.     

光纤1/f热噪声的实验研究

光纤热噪声是限制光纤传感、测量系统性能的最终因素.但是低频区域呈1/f谱特性的光纤热噪声的形成机制迄今仍然存在争论.实验研究了光纤1/f热噪声水平与光纤内杂质离子浓度和光纤施加张力的关系,验证了这类热噪声来源于光纤内部的机械耗散引起的长度自发抖动,符合热机械噪声的理论假设.     

D-term Chaotic Braneworld in Supergravity Constrained by WMAP9 Data

We study a supergravity D-term chaotic inflationary model, in the context of the braneworld scenario, in particular we consider the Randal1-Sundrum model type 2. Using the latest release from the combination of WMAP9, eCMB, BAO, and Ho, we show that the inflation observables depend only on the number ore-folds N. We also derive all known spectrum inflationary parameters, which are widely consistent with WMAP9 data for a particular choice of values N specially for the scalar spectral index ns and the ratio r. However, the running of the scalar spectral index dns/dlnk is now excluded from the range given by the latest observational measurements.     

Thermal noise computation in gravitational wave interferometers from first principles

We propose a universal method of computation of thermal noise in mirrors of gravitational wave interferometers based on first principles. We imagine a situation where a mirror is part of a Fabry–Perot cavity. The movement of the mirror's surface produces variation of the eigen frequency of the cavity, which is computed by evaluating the variation of the energy stored in cavity. We consider two particular examples: first, the thermal noise from a dielectric slab inside the Fabry–Perot cavity, and second, the polarization-dependent thermal noise in the folded cavity.     

Hybrid linear amplifier-involved detection for continuous variable quantum key distribution with thermal states

Continuous-variable quantum key distribution(CVQKD) can be integrated with thermal states for short-distance wireless quantum communications. However, its performance is usually restricted with the practical thermal noise. We propose a method to improve the security threshold of thermal-state(TS) CVQKD by employing a heralded hybrid linear amplifier(HLA) at the receiver. We find the effect of thermal noise on the HLA-involved scheme in near-and-mid infrared band or terahertz band for direct and reverse reconciliation. Numerical simulations show that the HLA-involved scheme can compensate for the detriment of thermal noise and hence increase the security threshold of TS-CVQKD. In near-and-mid infrared band, security threshold can be extended by 2.1 dB in channel loss for direct reconciliation and 1.6 dB for reverse reconciliation, whereas in terahertz band, security threshold can be slightly enhanced for the gain parameter less than 1 due to the rise in thermal noise.     

The interplay of thermal and pump fluctuations in stimulated Brillouin scattering

We present a experimental and theoretical investigation of spontaneously initiated stimulated Brillouin scattering in which the interplay of two independent noise sources (thermal and pump) can be studied by controlling the relative importance of each source. We vary the pump noise by adding a controlled amount of Gaussian noise to the input pulses, and we control the contribution of the thermal noise by examining the energy statistics of both entire scattered pulses and of temporal slices of the scattered pulses. We show that the energy of the whole Stokes pulses follow a Gaussian distribution but that the energy of the Stokes pulse slices do not.     

Challenges in thermal noise for 3rd generation of gravitational wave detectors

Various noise sources limit the sensitivity of current interferometric gravitational wave detectors, including seismic noise, thermal noise of the optical components and suspension elements and photon shot noise. Plans are in place for a suite of hardware upgrades which should increase the sensitivity of these detectors by reducing the various noise sources. With these designs for 2nd generation detectors mature, techniques for further improvement of detector sensitivity by a factor of approximately 10 are under study. A particular challenge is the reduction of the thermal noise associated with the interferometer mirrors and their suspensions. We review the current status of research on thermal noise in interferometric gravitational wave detectors. Aspects of possible techniques for use in future ‘3rd generation detectors’ such as cryogenics and diffractive optics are discussed.     

Thin-Film Flow Influenced by Thermal Noise

We study the influence of thermal fluctuations on the dewetting dynamics of thin liquid films. Starting from the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations with thermal noise, we derive a fourth-order degenerate parabolic stochastic partial differential equation which includes a conservative, multiplicative noise term—the stochastic thin-film equation. Technically, we rely on a long-wave-approximation and Fokker–Planck-type arguments. We formulate a discretization method and give first numerical evidence for our conjecture that thermal fluctuations are capable of accelerating film rupture and that discrepancies with respect to time-scales between physical experiments and deterministic numerical simulations can be resolved by taking noise effects into account.     

Work fluctuation theorem for coloured noise driven open systems

We have studied work fluctuation behaviour in the presence of internal thermal noise as well as external coloured noise. The external coloured noise may have both Gaussian or non-Gaussian characteristics. We have investigated the dependence of position and work fluctuations on the properties of both the environments. For thermal noise driven systems, there is a maximum in the variation of mean square fluctuation of work (MSFW) as a function of damping strength at intermediate times, while at asymptotic long times MSFW monotonically increases in the same damping regime. But for external noise, MSFW monotonically decreases as a function of damping strength at intermediate times, whereas at long times it becomes almost independent of damping strength.Another interesting observation is that for the external noise driven systems, noise correlation time and damping strength have similar roles in the dynamics.     

Magnetostatic field noise near metallic surfaces

We develop an effective low-frequency theory of the electromagnetic field in equilibrium with thermal objects. The aim is to compute thermal magnetic noise spectra close to metallic microstructures. We focus on the limit where the material response is characterised by the electric conductivity. At the boundary between empty space and metallic microstructures, a large jump occurs in the dielectric function which leads to a partial screening of low-frequency magnetic fields generated by thermal current fluctuations. We resolve a discrepancy between two approaches used in the past to compute magnetic field noise spectra close to microstructured materials.     

"Negative" backaction noise in interferometric detection of a microlever

Interferometric detection of mirror displacements is intrinsically limited by laser shot noise. In practice, however, it is often limited by thermal noise. Here we report on an experiment performed at the liquid helium temperature to overcome the thermal noise limitation and investigate the effect of classical laser noise on a microlever that forms a Fabry-Perot cavity with an optical fiber. The spectral noise densities show a region of "negative" contribution of the backaction noise close to the resonance frequency. We interpret this noise reduction as a coherent coupling of the microlever to the laser intensity noise. This optomechanical effect could be used to improve the detection sensitivity as discussed in proposals going beyond the standard quantum limit.     

Nyquist noise of cell adhesion detected in a neuron-silicon transistor

Interfacing of nerve cells and field-effect transistors is determined by current flow along the electrical resistance of the cell-chip junction. We study the thermal noise of the junction by measuring the fluctuations of extracellular voltage with a low-noise transistor. We find a spectral power density of 5 x 10(-14) V2/Hz and interpret it as Nyquist noise of the cell-chip junction with a resistance of 3 MOhm. The thermal noise allows us to elucidate the properties of cell adhesion and it sets a thermodynamical limit for the signal-to-noise ratio of neuroelectronic interfacing.     

Inflation with an antisymmetric tensor field

We investigate the possibility of inflation with models of antisymmetric tensor field having minimal and nonminimal couplings to gravity. Although the minimal model does not support inflation, the nonminimal models, through the introduction of a nonminimal coupling to gravity, can give rise to stable de-Sitter solutions with a bound on the coupling parameters. The values of field and coupling parameters are sub-planckian. Slow roll analysis is performed and slow-roll parameters are defined which can give the required number of e-folds for sufficient inflation. Stability analysis has been performed for perturbations to antisymmetric field while keeping the metric unperturbed, and it is found that only the sub-horizon modes are free of ghost instability for de-Sitter space.     

Wide-band measurement of mechanical thermal noise using a laser interferometer

We have measured the displacement thermal noise of a mechanical cantilever, made of phosphor bronze, using a laser interferometer. The measured noise spectrum agrees well with an estimation based on the fluctuation–dissipation theorem with a mechanical-admittance measurement. The frequency range where we could measure the thermal noise was from 50  to 500 Hz; this range is important for the noise characterization of interferometric gravitational wave detectors.     

Non-Markovian stochastic processes: colored noise

We survey classical non-Markovian processes driven by thermal equilibrium or nonequilibrium (nonthermal) colored noise. Examples of colored noise are presented. For processes driven by thermal equilibrium noise, the fluctuation-dissipation relation holds. In consequence, the system has to be described by a generalized (integro-differential) Langevin equation with a restriction on the damping integral kernel: Its form depends on the correlation function of noise. For processes driven by nonequilibrium noise, there is no such a restriction: They are considered to be described by stochastic differential (Ito- or Langevin-type) equations with an independent noise term. For the latter, we review methods of analysis of one-dimensional systems driven by Ornstein-Uhlenbeck noise.