Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• Massive holographic QFTs in de Sitter

  José Manuel Penín, Kostas Skenderis, Benjamin Withers

  SciPost Phys. 12, 182 (2022) · published 1 June 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study strongly coupled mass-deformed-CFT on a fixed de Sitter spacetime in three dimensions via holography. We elucidate the global causal structure of the four-dimensional spacetime dual to the de Sitter invariant vacuum state. The conformal boundaries of de Sitter appear as spacelike defects sourced by the mass deformation, which extend into the bulk as curvature singularities in AdS. We compute all one- and two-point functions of the deformed-CFT stress tensor and a scalar operator order-by-order in the mass deformation for a simple holographic model. These correlation functions admit a spectral representation as a sum of simple poles corresponding to normalisable modes in the bulk.

  5 citations

• Audible axions with a booster: Stochastic gravitational waves from rotating ALPs

  Eric Madge, Wolfram Ratzinger, Daniel Schmitt, Pedro Schwaller

  SciPost Phys. 12, 171 (2022) · published 24 May 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Gravitational waves provide a novel way to probe axions or axion-like particles coupled to a dark photon field, even in the absence of couplings to Standard Model particles. In the conventional misalignment mechanism, the generation of an observable stochastic gravitational wave background, however, requires large axion decay constants. We here investigate the gravitational wave signal generated within the kinetic misalignment scenario, where the axion is assumed to have a large initial velocity. Its kinetic energy then provides a sufficiently high energy budget to generate a detectable gravitational wave signal also at lower values of the decay constant. We obtain an analytic estimate as well as perform numerical simulations of the corresponding gravitational wave signal, and evaluate its detectability at current and future gravitational wave observatories. We further present the corresponding projected constraints on the parameter space of the model, along with the parameter regions in which the dark photon or axion constitute dark matter, or in which the baryon asymmetry of the Universe is generated via the axiogenesis mechanism. Finally we compute the GW production from the fragmentation of rotating axions, which is however difficult to observe experimentally.

  16 citations

• New directions in the search for dark matter

  Surjeet Rajendran

  SciPost Phys. Lect. Notes 56 (2022) · published 23 May 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The identification of the nature of dark matter is one of the most important problems confronting particle physics. Current observational constraints permit the mass of the dark matter to range from $\sim 10^{-22}$ eV - $10^{48}$ GeV. Given the weak nature of these bounds and the ease with which dark matter models can be constructed, it is clear that the problem can only be solved experimentally. In these lectures, I discuss methods to experimentally probe a wide range of dark matter candidates.

  3 citations

• AMS-02 antiprotons and dark matter: Trimmed hints and robust bounds

  Francesca Calore, Marco Cirelli, Laurent Derome, Yoann Genolini, David Maurin, Pierre Salati, Pasquale D. Serpico

  SciPost Phys. 12, 163 (2022) · published 18 May 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Based on 4 yr AMS-02 antiproton data, we present bounds on the dark matter (DM) annihilation cross section vs. mass for some representative final state channels. We use recent cosmic-ray propagation models, a realistic treatment of experimental and theoretical errors, and an updated calculation of input antiproton spectra based on a recent release of the PYTHIA code. We find that reported hints of a DM signal are statistically insignificant; an adequate treatment of errors is crucial for credible conclusions. Antiproton bounds on DM annihilation are among the most stringent ones, probing thermal DM up to the TeV scale. The dependence of the bounds upon propagation models and the DM halo profile is also quantified. A preliminary estimate reaches similar conclusions when applied to the 7 years AMS-02 dataset, but also suggests extra caution as for possible future claims of DM excesses.

  31 citations

• Les Houches Lectures on Indirect Detection of Dark Matter

  Tracy R. Slatyer

  SciPost Phys. Lect. Notes 53 (2022) · published 13 May 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  These lectures, presented at the 2021 Les Houches Summer School on Dark Matter, provide an introduction to key methods and tools of indirect dark matter searches, as well as a status report on the field circa summer 2021. Topics covered include the possible effects of energy injection from dark matter on the early universe, methods to calculate both the expected energy distribution and spatial distribution of particles produced by dark matter interactions, an outline of theoretical models that predict diverse signals in indirect detection, and a discussion of current constraints and some claimed anomalies. These notes are intended as an introduction to indirect dark matter searches for graduate students, focusing primarily on intuition-building estimates and useful concepts and tools.

  15 citations

• Dark atoms and composite dark matter

  James M. Cline

  SciPost Phys. Lect. Notes 52 (2022) · published 13 May 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  I selectively review the theoretical properties and observational limits pertaining to dark atoms, as well as composite dark matter candidates bound by a confining gauge interaction: dark glueballs, glueballinos, mesons and baryons. Emphasis is given to cosmological, direct and indirect detection constraints.

  16 citations

• Probing the particle spectrum of nature with evaporating black holes

  Michael J. Baker, Andrea Thamm

  SciPost Phys. 12, 150 (2022) · published 9 May 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Photons radiated from an evaporating black hole in principle provide complete information on the particle spectrum of nature up to the Planck scale. If an evaporating black hole were to be observed, it would open a unique window onto models beyond the Standard Model of particle physics. To demonstrate this, we compute the limits that could be placed on the size of a dark sector. We find that observation of an evaporating black hole at a distance of 0.01 parsecs could probe dark sector models containing one or more copies of the Standard Model particles, with any mass scale up to 100 TeV.

  18 citations

• Primordial black holes as dark matter candidates

  Bernard Carr, Florian Kuhnel

  SciPost Phys. Lect. Notes 48 (2022) · published 2 May 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We review the formation and evaporation of primordial black holes (PBHs) and their possible contribution to dark matter. Various constraints suggest they could only provide most of it in the mass windows $10^{17}$ - $10^{23}\,$g or $10$ - $10^{2}\,M_{\odot}$, with the last possibility perhaps being suggested by the LIGO/Virgo observations. However, PBHs could have important consequences even if they have a low cosmological density. Sufficiently large ones might generate cosmic structures and provide seeds for the supermassive black holes in galactic nuclei. Planck-mass relics of PBH evaporations or stupendously large black holes bigger than $10^{12}\,M_{\odot}$ could also be an interesting dark component.

  70 citations

• Entanglement entropy from entanglement contour: higher dimensions

  Muxin Han, Qiang Wen

  SciPost Phys. Core 5, 020 (2022) · published 12 April 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study the entanglement contour and partial entanglement entropy (PEE) in quantum field theories in 3 and higher dimensions. The entanglement entropy is evaluated from a certain limit of the PEE with a geometric regulator. In the context of the entanglement contour, we classify the geometric regulators, study their difference from the UV regulators. Furthermore, for spherical regions in conformal field theories (CFTs) we find the exact relation between the UV and geometric cutoff, which clarifies some subtle points in the previous literature. We clarify a subtle point of the additive linear combination (ALC) proposal for PEE in higher dimensions. The subset entanglement entropies in the ALC proposal should all be evaluated as a limit of the PEE while excluding a fixed class of local-short-distance correlation. Unlike the 2-dimensional configurations, naively plugging the entanglement entropy calculated with a UV cutoff will spoil the validity of the ALC proposal. We derive the entanglement contour function for spherical regions, annuli and spherical shells in the vacuum state of general-dimensional CFTs on a hyperplane.

  14 citations

• Gravitational wave induced baryon acoustic oscillations

  Christian Döring, Salvador Centelles Chuliá, Manfred Lindner, Bjoern Malte Schaefer, Matthias Bartelmann

  SciPost Phys. 12, 114 (2022) · published 31 March 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study the impact of gravitational waves originating from a first order phase transition on structure formation. To do so, we perform a second order perturbation analysis in the $1+3$ covariant framework and derive a wave equation in which second order, adiabatic density perturbations of the photon-baryon fluid are sourced by the gravitational wave energy density during radiation domination and on sub-horizon scales. The scale on which such waves affect the energy density perturbation spectrum is found to be proportional to the horizon size at the time of the phase transition times its inverse duration. Consequently, structure of the size of galaxies and bigger can only be affected in this way by relatively late phase transitions at $\ge 10^{6}\,\text{s}$. Using cosmic variance as a bound we derive limits on the strength $\alpha$ and the relative duration $(\beta/H_*)^{-1}$ of phase transitions as functions of the time of their occurrence which results in a new exclusion region for the energy density in gravitational waves today. We find that the cosmic variance bound forbids only relative long lasting phase transitions, e.g. $\beta/H_*\lesssim 6.8$ for $t_*\approx 5\times10^{11}\,\text{s}$, which exhibit a substantial amount of supercooling $\alpha>20$ to affect the matter power spectrum.

  3 citations