Flavon inflation

We propose an entirely new class of particle physics models of inflation based on the phase transition associated with the spontaneous breaking of family symmetry responsible for the generation of the effective quark and lepton Yukawa couplings. We show that the Higgs fields responsible for the breaking of family symmetry, called flavons, are natural candidates for the inflaton field in new inflation, or the waterfall fields in hybrid inflation. This opens up a rich vein of possibilities for inflation, all linked to the physics of flavour, with interesting cosmological and phenomenological implications. Out of these, we discuss two examples which realise flavon inflation: a model of new inflation based on the discrete non-Abelian family symmetry group A₄$A_4$ or Δ₂₇${\mathrm{\Delta }}_{27}$, and a model of hybrid inflation embedded in an existing flavour model with a continuous SU(3)$\mathit{SU}(3)$ family symmetry. With the inflation scale and family symmetry breaking scale below the Grand Unification Theory (GUT) scale, these classes of models are free of the monopole (and similar) problems which are often associated with the GUT phase transition.     

Gravitino overproduction in inflaton decay

Most of the inflation models end up with non-vanishing vacuum expectation values of the inflaton fields ?   in the true vacuum, which induce, in general, non-vanishing auxiliary field G?$G_{?}$ for the inflaton potential in supergravity. We show that the presence of nonzero G?$G_{?}$ gives rise to inflaton decay into a pair of the gravitinos and are thereby severely constrained by cosmology especially if the gravitino is unstable and its mass is in a range of O(100) GeV–O(10) TeV$O(100)\text{GeV}\text{–}O(10)\text{TeV}$. For several inflation models, we explicitly calculate the values of G?$G_{?}$ and find that most of them are excluded or on the verge of being excluded for the gravitino mass in that range. We conclude that an inflation model with vanishing G?$G_{?}$, typically realized in a chaotic inflation, is favored in a sense that it naturally avoids the potential gravitino overproduction problem.     

Primordial large-scale electromagnetic fields from gravitoelectromagnetic inflation

We investigate the origin and evolution of primordial electric and magnetic fields in the early universe, when the expansion is governed by a cosmological constant Λ₀${\Lambda }_0$. Using the gravitoelectromagnetic inflationary formalism with A₀=0$A_0=0$, we obtain the power of spectrums for large-scale magnetic fields and the inflaton field fluctuations during inflation. A very important fact is that our formalism is naturally non-conformally invariant.     

Holographic walking from tachyon DBI

We use holography to study conformal phase transitions, which are believed to be realized in four dimensional QCD and play an important role in walking technicolor models of electroweak symmetry breaking. At strong coupling they can be modeled by the non-linear dynamics of a tachyonic scalar field with mass close to the Breitenlohner–Freedman bound in anti-de Sitter spacetime. Taking the action for this field to have a tachyon-Dirac–Born–Infeld form gives rise to models that resemble hard and soft wall AdS/QCD, with a dynamically generated wall. For hard wall models, the highly excited spectrum has the KK form _mn∼n$m_n\sim n$; in the soft wall case we exhibit potentials with _mn∼n^α$m_n\sim n^{\alpha }$, 0<α?1/2$0<\alpha ?1/2$. We investigate the finite temperature phase structure and find first or second order symmetry restoration transitions, depending on the behavior of the potential near the origin of field space.     

Inflaton mass in the νMSM inflation

We analyze the reheating in the modification of the ν  MSM (Standard Model with three right handed neutrinos with masses below the electroweak scale) where one of the sterile neutrinos, which provides the Dark Matter, is generated in decays of the additional inflaton field. We deduce that due to rather inefficient transfer of energy from the inflaton to the Standard Model sector reheating tends to occur at very low temperature, thus providing strict bounds on the coupling between the inflaton and the Higgs particles. This in turn translates to the bound on the inflaton mass, which appears to be very light 0.1 GeV?mI?10 GeV$0.1\text{GeV}?m_I?10\text{GeV}$, or slightly heavier then two Higgs masses 300 GeV?mI?1000 GeV$300\text{GeV}?m_I?1000\text{GeV}$.     

A phenomenology analysis of the tachyon warm inflation in loop quantum cosmology

We investigate the warm inflation condition in loop quantum cosmology. In our consideration, the system is described by a tachyon field interacted with radiation. The exponential potential function, V(?)=V₀e−α?$V(?)=V_0{e}^{-\alpha ?}$, with the same order parameters V₀$V_0$ and α, is taken as an example of this tachyon warm inflation model. We find that, for the strong dissipative regime, the total number of e-folds is less than the one in the classical scenario, and for the weak dissipative regime, the beginning time of the warm inflation will be later than the tachyon (cool) inflation.     

Generalised space–time and duality

In this Letter we consider the previously proposed generalised space–time and investigate the structure of the field theory upon which it is based. In particular, we derive a SO(D,D)$\mathit{SO}(D,D)$ formulation of the bosonic string as a non-linear realisation at lowest levels of E₁₁s_⊗l₁$E_{11}{\otimes }_s{l}_1$ where l₁$l_1$ is the first fundamental representation. We give a Hamiltonian formulation of this theory and carry out its quantisation. We argue that the choice of representation of the quantum theory breaks the manifest SO(D,D)$\mathit{SO}(D,D)$ symmetry but that the symmetry is manifest in a non-commutative field theory. We discuss the implications for the conjectured E₁₁$E_{11}$ symmetry and the role of the l₁$l_1$ representation.     

Cosmology with light axions from technicolor

We consider cosmological consequences of the spontaneous breaking of a global symmetry that is anomalous under technicolor interactions, leading to the emergence of a light axion-like particle. Avoiding overclosure of the universe by such axions yields the upper bound fa?¹⁰¹⁰ GeV$f_a?{10}^{10}\text{GeV}$ on the symmetry breaking scale, corresponding to keV-scale axions. However, diffuse X-ray background data typically require larger values of fa$f_a$. The overclosure and X-ray bounds can be reconciled if the axion initial amplitude of oscillations Ai∼fa/10$A_i\sim f_a/10$. In this case, a viable axionic dark matter candidate with a mass in the 50–100 eV range emerges. The detection of this type of dark matter may pose a challenge.     

Thermodynamics of antiferromagnetic alternating spin chains

We consider integrable quantum spin chains with alternating spins (S₁,S₂)$(S_1,S_2)$. We derive a finite set of non-linear integral equations for the thermodynamics of these models by use of the quantum transfer matrix approach. Numerical solutions of the integral equations are provided for quantities like specific heat, magnetic susceptibility and in the case S₁=S₂$S_1=S_2$ for the thermal Drude weight. At low temperatures one class of models shows finite magnetization and the other class presents antiferromagnetic behaviour. The thermal Drude weight behaves linearly on T at low temperatures and is proportional to the central charge c   of the system. Quite generally, we observe residual entropy for S₁≠S₂$S_1\ne S_2$.     

Probing a possible vacuum refractive index with γ-ray telescopes

We have used a stringy model of quantum space–time foam to suggest that the vacuum may exhibit a non-trivial refractive index depending linearly on γ  -ray energy: η−1∼Eγ/M_QG1$\eta -1\sim E_{\gamma }/M_{\mathrm{QG}1}$, where MQG$M_{\mathrm{QG}}$ is some mass scale typical of quantum gravity that may be ∼¹⁰¹⁸ GeV$\sim {10}^{18}\text{GeV}$: see [J. Ellis, N.E. Mavromatos, D.V. Nanopoulos, Phys. Lett. B 665 (2008) 412] and references therein. The MAGIC, HESS and Fermi γ-ray telescopes have recently probed the possible existence of such an energy-dependent vacuum refractive index. All find indications of time-lags for higher-energy photons, but cannot exclude the possibility that they are due to intrinsic delays at the sources. However, the MAGIC and HESS observations of time-lags in emissions from AGNs Mkn 501 and PKS 2155-304 are compatible with each other and a refractive index depending linearly on the γ  -ray energy, with M_QG1∼¹⁰¹⁸ GeV$M_{\mathrm{QG}1}\sim {10}^{18}\text{GeV}$. We combine their results to estimate the time-lag Δt   to be expected for the highest-energy photon from GRB 080916c measured by the Fermi telescope, which has an energy ∼13.2 GeV$\sim 13.2\text{GeV}$, assuming the redshift z=4.35±0.15$z=4.35\pm 0.15$ measured by GROND. In the case of a refractive index depending linearly on the γ  -ray energy we predict Δt=26±11 s$\mathrm{\Delta }t=26\pm 11\text{s}$. This is compatible with the time-lag Δt?16.5 s$\mathrm{\Delta }t?16.5\text{s}$ reported by the Fermi Collaboration, whereas the time-lag would be negligible in the case of a refractive index depending quadratically on the γ-ray energy. We suggest a strategy for future observations that could distinguish between a quantum-gravitational effect and other interpretations of the time-lags observed by the MAGIC, HESS and Fermi γ-ray telescopes.     

Implications of neutrino mass generation from QCD confinement

We consider the possibility that the quark condensate formed by QCD confinement generates Majorana neutrino masses mν$m_{\nu }$ via dimension seven operators. No degrees of freedom beyond the Standard Model are necessary, below the electroweak scale. Obtaining experimentally acceptable neutrino masses requires the new physics scale Λ∼TeV$\Lambda \sim \text{TeV}$, providing a new motivation for weak-scale discoveries at the LHC. We implement this mechanism using a Z₃$Z_3$ symmetry which leads to a massless up quark above the QCD chiral condensate scale. We use non-helicity-suppressed light meson rare decay data to constrain Λ. Experimental constraints place a mild hierarchy on the flavor structure of dimension seven operators and the resulting neutrino mass matrix.     

Coincidence problem in YM field dark energy model

The coincidence problem is studied in the effective Yang–Mills condensate dark energy model. As the effective YM Lagrangian is completely determined by quantum field theory, there is no adjustable parameter in this model except the energy scale, and the cosmic evolution only depends on the initial conditions. For generic initial conditions with the YM condensate subdominant to the radiation and matter, the model always has a tracking solution, the Universe transits from matter-dominated into the dark energy dominated stage only recently z∼0.3$z\sim 0.3$, and evolve to the present state with Ωy∼0.73${\Omega }_y\sim 0.73$ and Ωm∼0.27${\Omega }_m\sim 0.27$.