Publications

Order by: publication date number of 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

• An introduction to axions and their detection

  Igor García Irastorza

  SciPost Phys. Lect. Notes 45 (2022) · published 29 March 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  In these notes I try to introduce the reader to the topic of axions: their theoretical motivation and expected phenomenology, their role in astrophysics and as dark matter candidate, and the experimental techniques to detect them. Special emphasis is made in this last point, for which a relatively updated review of worldwide efforts and future prospects is made. The material is intended as an introduction to the topic, and it was prepared as lecture notes for Les Houches summer school 2021. Abundant references are included to direct the reader to deeper insight on the different aspects of axion physics.

  15 citations

• Sub-GeV dark matter models and direct detection

  Tongyan Lin

  SciPost Phys. Lect. Notes 43 (2022) · published 18 March 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Lecture notes for Les Houches Summer School 2021: Dark Matter. These lectures give a brief introduction to sub-GeV dark matter models, and then reviews theory and approaches to direct detection of sub-GeV dark matter.

  5 citations

• Dark Matter Superfluidity

  Justin Khoury

  SciPost Phys. Lect. Notes 42 (2022) · published 16 March 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  In these lectures I describe a theory of dark matter superfluidity developed in the last few years. The dark matter particles are axion-like, with masses of order eV. They Bose-Einstein condense into a superfluid phase in the central regions of galaxy halos. The superfluid phonon excitations in turn couple to baryons and mediate a long-range force (beyond Newtonian gravity). For a suitable choice of the superfluid equation of state, this force reproduces the various galactic scaling relations embodied in Milgrom's law. Thus the dark matter and modified gravity phenomena represent different phases of a single underlying substance, unified through the rich and well-studied physics of superfluidity.

  9 citations

• A brief introduction to extended gravity and connections to dark energy: Illustrated with scalar field examples

  Clare Burrage

  SciPost Phys. Lect. Notes 41 (2022) · published 15 March 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  These lecture notes provide a brief introduction to extensions of gravity and their connections to dark energy. Due to time and space limitations this is not a comprehensive review of the field. Instead, I aim to introduce key concepts and ideas in this area through a series of examples based on scalar field extensions of gravity and models of dark energy.

  1 citation

• Quantum enhanced metrology in the search for fundamental physical phenomena

  Konrad W. Lehnert

  SciPost Phys. Lect. Notes 40 (2022) · published 11 March 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  These notes summarize lectures given at the 2019 Les Houches summer school on Quantum Information Machines. They describe and review an application of quantum metrology concepts to searches for ultralight dark matter. In particular, for ultralight dark matter that couples as a weak classical force to a laboratory harmonic oscillator, quantum squeezing benefits experiments in which the mass of the dark matter particle is unknown. This benefit is present even if the oscillatory dark matter signal is much more coherent than the harmonic oscillator that it couples to, as is the case for microwave frequency searches for dark matter axion particles.

  4 citations

• Dark matter in astrophysics/cosmology

  Anne M. Green

  SciPost Phys. Lect. Notes 37 (2022) · published 25 January 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  These lecture notes aim to provide an introduction to dark matter from the perspective of astrophysics/cosmology. We start with a rapid overview of cosmology, including the evolution of the Universe, its thermal history and structure formation. Then we look at the observational evidence for dark matter, from observations of galaxies, galaxy clusters, the anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background radiation and large scale structure. To detect dark matter we need to know how it's distributed, in particular in the Milky Way, so next we overview relevant results from numerical simulations and observations. Finally, we conclude by looking at what astrophysical and cosmological observations can tell us about the nature of dark matter, focusing on two particular cases: warm and self-interacting dark matter.

  14 citations

• Sterile neutrinos as dark matter candidates

  Joachim Kopp

  SciPost Phys. Lect. Notes 36 (2022) · published 19 January 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  In these brief lecture notes, we introduce sterile neutrinos as dark matter candidates. We discuss in particular their production via oscillations, their radiative decay, as well as possible observational signatures and constraints.

  6 citations

• Complete set of quasi-conserved quantities for spinning particles around Kerr

  Geoffrey Compère, Adrien Druart

  SciPost Phys. 12, 012 (2022) · published 10 January 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We revisit the conserved quantities of the Mathisson-Papapetrou-Tulczyjew equations describing the motion of spinning particles on a fixed background. Assuming Ricci-flatness and the existence of a Killing-Yano tensor, we demonstrate that besides the two non-trivial quasi-conserved quantities, i.e. conserved at linear order in the spin, found by R\"udiger, non-trivial quasi-conserved quantities are in one-to-one correspondence with non-trivial mixed-symmetry Killing tensors. We prove that no such stationary and axisymmetric mixed-symmetry Killing tensor exists on the Kerr geometry. We discuss the implications for the motion of spinning particles on Kerr spacetime where the quasi-constants of motion are shown not to be in complete involution.

  14 citations

• Reconstructing the graviton

  Alfio Bonanno, Tobias Denz, Jan M. Pawlowski, Manuel Reichert

  SciPost Phys. 12, 001 (2022) · published 4 January 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We reconstruct the Lorentzian graviton propagator in asymptotically safe quantum gravity from Euclidean data. The reconstruction is applied to both the dynamical fluctuation graviton and the background graviton propagator. We prove that the spectral function of the latter necessarily has negative parts similar to, and for the same reasons, as the gluon spectral function. In turn, the spectral function of the dynamical graviton is positive. We argue that the latter enters cross sections and other observables in asymptotically safe quantum gravity. Hence, its positivity may hint at the unitarity of asymptotically safe quantum gravity.

  80 citations