Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• Model-independent determination of the cosmic growth factor

  Sophia Haude, Shabnam Salehi, Sofía Vidal, Matteo Maturi, Matthias Bartelmann

  SciPost Astro. 2, 001 (2022) · published 17 January 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Since the discovery of the accelerated cosmic expansion, one of the most important tasks in observational cosmology is to determine the nature of the dark energy. We should build our understanding on a minimum of assumptions in order to avoid biases from assumed cosmological models. The two most important functions describing the evolution of the universe and its structures are the expansion function E(a) and the linear growth factor D_+(a). The expansion function has been determined in previous papers in a model-independent way using distance moduli to type-Ia supernovae and assuming only a metric theory of gravity, spatial isotropy and homogeneity. Here, we extend this analysis in three ways: (1) We extend the data sample by combining the Pantheon measurements of type-Ia supernovae with measurements of baryonic acoustic oscillations; (2) we substantially simplify and generalise our method for reconstructing the expansion function; and (3) we use the reconstructed expansion function to determine the linear growth factor of cosmic structures, equally independent of specific assumptions on an underlying cosmological model other than the usual spatial symmetries. We show that the result is quite insensitive to the initial conditions for solving the growth equation, leaving the present-day matter-density parameter {\Omega}_m0 as the only relevant parameter for an otherwise purely empirical and accurate determination of the growth factor.

  2 citations

• Can we really detect relic neutrinos?

  Yevheniia Cheipesh, Ivan Ridkokasha, Vadim Cheianov, Alexey Boyarsky

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 12, 042 (2023) · published 4 July 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Detecting relic neutrinos is a longstanding goal in fundamental physics. Experimentally, this goal is extremely challenging as the required energy resolution is defined by the tiny neutrino masses ($\sim$ 10 meV). The current consensus is that sufficient statistics together with a clean spectrum could only be achieved if beta decayers are attached to a solid state substrate. However, this inevitably imposes irreducible intrinsic limitations on the energy resolution coming from Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. This limitation appears to be critical for the currently accepted decayer - Tritium. Here, we analyze the state of the art approaches to mitigate this limitation and conclude that the most promising solution is to change Tritium for a heavier emitter. We find that the two suitable candidates are $^{171}$Tm, $^{63}$Ni.

  2 citations

• Positivity, low twist dominance and CSDR for CFTs

  Agnese Bissi, Aninda Sinha

  SciPost Phys. 14, 083 (2023) · published 25 April 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We consider a crossing symmetric dispersion relation (CSDR) for CFT four point correlation with identical scalar operators, which is manifestly symmetric under the cross-ratios $u,v$ interchange. This representation has several features in common with the CSDR for quantum field theories. It enables a study of the expansion of the correlation function around $u=v=1/4$, which is used in the numerical conformal bootstrap program. We elucidate several remarkable features of the dispersive representation using the four point correlation function of $\Phi_{1,2}$ operators in 2d minimal models as a test-bed. When the dimension of the external scalar operator ($\Delta_\sigma$) is less than $\frac{1}{2}$, the CSDR gets contribution from only a single tower of global primary operators with the second tower being projected out. We find that there is a notion of low twist dominance (LTD) which, as a function of $\Delta_\sigma$, is maximized near the 2d Ising model as well as the non-unitary Yang-Lee model. The CSDR and LTD further explain positivity of the Taylor expansion coefficients of the correlation function around the crossing symmetric point and lead to universal predictions for specific ratios of these coefficients. These results carry over to the epsilon expansion in $4-\epsilon$ dimensions. We also conduct a preliminary investigation of geometric function theory ideas, namely the Bieberbach-Rogosinski bounds.

  2 citations

• Kaonic atoms experiment at the DAΦNE collider by SIDDHARTA/SIDDHARTA-2

  M. Skurzok, A. Amirkhani, A. Baniahmad, M. Bazzi, D. Bosnar, M. Bragadireanu, M. Carminati, M. Cargnelli, A. Clozza, C. Curceanu, L. De Paolis, R. Del Grande, L. Fabbietti, C. Fiorini, C. Guaraldo, M. Iliescu, M. Iwasaki, P. Levi Sandri, J. Marton, M. Miliucci, P. Moskal, S. Niedzwiecki, S. Okada, D. Pietreanu, K. Piscicchia, A. Scordo, M. Silarski, D. Sirghi, F. Sirghi, A. Spallone, M. Tüchler, O. Vazquez Doce, E. Widmann, J. Zmeskal

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 3, 039 (2020) · published 26 February 2020 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The excellent quality kaon beam provided by the DAΦNE collider of LNF-INFN (Italy) together with SIDDHARTA/SIDDHARTA-2 new experimental techniques, as very precise and fast-response X-ray detectors, allow to perform unprecedented measurements on light kaonic atoms crucial for a deeper understanding of the low-energy quantum chromodynamics (QCD) in the strangeness sector. In this paper an overview of the main results obtained by the SIDDHARTA collaboration, as well as the future plans related to the SIDDHARTA-2 experiment, are discussed.

  2 citations

• Improved treatment of dark matter capture in compact stars

  Sandra Robles

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 12, 057 (2023) · published 5 July 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Compact stellar objects are promising cosmic laboratories to test the nature of dark matter (DM). DM captured by the strong gravitational field of these stellar remnants transfers kinetic energy to the star during the collision. This can have various effects such as anomalous heating of old compact stars. The proper calculation of the DM capture rate is key to derive bounds on DM interactions in any scenario involving DM accretion in a star. We improve former calculations, which rely on approximations, for both white dwarfs (WDs) and neutron stars (NSs). We account for the stellar structure, gravitational focusing, relativistic kinematics, Pauli blocking, realistic form factors, and strong interactions (NSs). Considering DM capture by scattering off either ions or degenerate electrons in WDs, we show that old WDs in DM-rich environments could probe the elusive sub-GeV mass regime for both DM-nucleon and DM-electron scattering. In NSs, DM can be captured via collisions with strongly interacting baryons or relativistic leptons. We project the NS sensitivity to DM-nucleon and DM-lepton scattering cross sections which greatly exceeds that of direct detection experiments, especially for low mass DM.

  2 citations

• Variation along liquid isomorphs of the driving force for crystallization

  Ulf R. Pedersen, Karolina Adrjanowicz, Kristine Niss, Nicholas P. Bailey

  SciPost Phys. 2, 022 (2017) · published 21 June 2017 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We investigate the variation of the driving force for crystallization of a supercooled liquid along isomorphs, curves along which structure and dynamics are invariant. The variation is weak, and can be predicted accurately for the Lennard-Jones fluid using a recently developed formalism and data at a reference temperature. More general analysis allows interpretation of experimental data for molecular liquids such as dimethyl phthalate and indomethacin, and suggests that the isomorph scaling exponent $\gamma$ in these cases is an increasing function of density, although this cannot be seen in measurements of viscosity or relaxation time.

  2 citations

• Temperature dependence of quasiparticle interference in $d$-wave superconductors

  Harun Al Rashid, Garima Goyal, Alireza Akbari, Dheeraj Kumar Singh

  SciPost Phys. Core 6, 033 (2023) · published 24 April 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We investigate the temperature dependence of quasiparticle interference in the high $T_c$-cuprates using an exact-diagonalization + Monte-Carlo based scheme to simulate the $d$-wave superconducting order parameter. The quasiparticle interference patterns have features largely resulting from the scattering vectors of the octet model at lower temperature. Our findings suggest that the features of quasiparticle interference in the pseudogap region of the phase diagram are also dominated by the set of scattering vectors belonging to the octet model because of the persisting antinodal gap beyond the superconducting transition $T_c$. However, beyond a temperature when the antinodal gap becomes very small, a set of scattering vectors different from those belonging to the octet model are responsible for the quasiparticle interference patterns. With a rise in temperature, the patterns are increasingly broadened.

  2 citations

• Faraday rotation and transmittance as markers of topological phase transitions in 2D materials

  Manuel Calixto, Alberto Mayorgas, Nicolás A. Cordero, Elvira Romera, Octavio Héctor Castaños Garza

  SciPost Phys. 16, 077 (2024) · published 18 March 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We analyze the magneto-optical conductivity (and related magnitudes like transmittance and Faraday rotation of the irradiated polarized light) of some elemental two-dimensional Dirac materials of group IV (graphene analogues, buckled honeycomb lattices, like silicene, germanene, stannane, etc.), group V (phosphorene), and zincblende heterostructures (like HgTe/CdTe quantum wells) near the Dirac and gamma points, under out-of-plane magnetic and electric fields, to characterize topological-band insulator phase transitions and their critical points. We provide plots of the Faraday angle and transmittance as a function of the polarized light frequency, for different external electric and magnetic fields, chemical potential, HgTe layer thickness and temperature, to tune the material magneto-optical properties. We have shown that absortance/transmittance acquires extremal values at the critical point, where the Faraday angle changes sign, thus providing fine markers of the topological phase transition. In the case of non-topological materials as phosphorene, a minimum of the transmittance is also observed due to the energy gap closing by an external electric field.

  2 citations

• Bonsai-SPH: A GPU accelerated astrophysical Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics code

  Jeroen Bédorf, Simon Portegies Zwart

  SciPost Astro. 1, 001 (2020) · published 14 May 2020 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We present the smoothed-particle hydrodynamics simulation code, Bonsai-SPH, which is a continuation of our previously developed gravity-only hierarchical $N$-body code (called Bonsai). The code is optimized for Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) accelerators which enables researchers to take advantage of these powerful computational resources. Bonsa-SPH produces simulation results comparable with state-of-the-art, CPU based, codes, but using an order of magnitude less computation time. The code is freely available online and the details are described in this work.

  2 citations

• Elliptic deformation of $\mathcal{W}_N$-algebras

  Jean Avan, Luc Frappat, Eric Ragoucy

  SciPost Phys. 6, 054 (2019) · published 7 May 2019 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We construct $q$-deformations of quantum $\mathcal{W}_N$ algebras with elliptic structure functions. Their spin $k+1$ generators are built from $2k$ products of the Lax matrix generators of ${\mathcal{A}_{q,p}(\widehat{gl}(N)_c)}$). The closure of the algebras is insured by a critical surface condition relating the parameters $p,q$ and the central charge $c$. Further abelianity conditions are determined, either as $c=-N$ or as a second condition on $p,q,c$. When abelianity is achieved, a Poisson bracket can be defined, that we determine explicitly. One connects these structures with previously built classical $q$-deformed $\mathcal{W}_N$ algebras and quantum $\mathcal{W}_{q,p}(\mathfrak{sl}_N)$.

  2 citations