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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 1,441 records · Page 80
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DOE OSTI2023

Detection of the significant impact of source clustering on higher order statistics with DES Year 3 weak gravitational lensing data

We measure the impact of source galaxy clustering on higher order summary statistics of weak gravitational lensing data. By comparing simulated data with galaxies that either trace or do not trace the underlying density field, we show that this effect can exceed measurement uncertainties for common higher order statistics for certain analysis choices. We evaluate the impact on different weak lensing observables, finding that third moments and wavelet phase harmonics are more affected than peak count statistics. Using Dark Energy Survey (DES) Year 3 (Y3) data, we construct null tests for the source-clustering-free case, finding a p-value of p = 4 × 10 −3 (2.6σ) using third-order map moments and p = 3 × 10 −11 (6.5σ) using wavelet phase harmonics. The impact of source clustering on cosmological inference can be either included in the model or minimized through ad hoc procedures (e.g. scale cuts). We verify that the procedures adopted in existing DES Y3 cosmological analyses were sufficient to render this effect negligible. Failing to account for source clustering can significantly impact cosmological inference from higher order gravitational lensing statistics, e.g. higher order N-point functions, wavelet-moment observables, and deep learning or field-level summary statistics of weak lensing maps.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2014

Line overlap and self-shielding of molecular hydrogen in galaxies

The effect of line overlap in the Lyman and Werner bands, often ignored in galactic studies of the atomic-to-molecular transition, greatly enhances molecular hydrogen self-shielding in low metallicity environments and dominates over dust shielding for metallicities below about 10% solar. We implement that effect in cosmological hydrodynamics simulations with an empirical model, calibrated against the observational data, and provide fitting formulae for the molecular hydrogen fraction as a function of gas density on various spatial scales and in environments with varied dust abundance and interstellar radiation field. We find that line overlap, while important for detailed radiative transfer in the Lyman and Werner bands, has only a minor effect on star formation on galactic scales, which, to a much larger degree, is regulated by stellar feedback.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2018

Quasi-single field inflation in the non-perturbative regime

In quasi-single field inflation there are massive fields that interact with the inflaton field. If these other fields are not much heavier than the Hubble constant during inflation ( H ) these interactions can lead to important consequences for the cosmological energy density perturbations. The simplest model of this type has a real scalar inflaton field that interacts with another real scalar S (with mass m). In this model there is a mixing term of the form μ ∙ π S , where π is the Goldstone fluctuation that is associated with the breaking of time translation invariance by the time evolution of the inflaton field during the inflationary era. In this paper we study this model in the region ( μ / H ) 2 + (m/ H ) 2 > 9/4 and m/ H ~O(1) or less. For a large part of the parameter space in this region standard perturbative methods are not applicable. In conclusion using numerical and analytic methods we study how large μ / H has to be for the large μ / H effective field theory approach to be applicable.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Accurate effective fluid approximation for ultralight axions

Ultralight axions are theoretically interesting and phenomenologically rich dark sector candidates, but they are difficult to track across cosmological timescales because of their fast oscillations. We resolve this problem by developing a novel method to evolve them efficiently and accurately. We first construct an exact effective fluid which at late times matches the axion but which evolves in a simple way. We then approximate this evolution with a carefully chosen equation of state and sound speed. With our scheme we find that we can obtain subpercent accuracy for the linear theory suppression of axion density fluctuations relative to that of cold dark matter without tracking even a single complete oscillation of the axion field. Furthermore, we use our technique to test other approximation schemes and to provide a fitting formula for the transfer function for the matter power spectrum in linear theory in axion models. Implementing our approach in existing cosmological axion codes is straightforward and will help unleash the potential of high-precision next-generation experiments.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2015

The cosmological Higgstory of the vacuum instability

We report that the Standard Model Higgs potential becomes unstable at large field values. After clarifying the issue of gauge dependence of the effective potential, we study the cosmological evolution of the Higgs field in presence of this instability throughout inflation, reheating and the present epoch. We conclude that anti-de Sitter patches in which the Higgs field lies at its true vacuum are lethal for our universe. From this result, we derive upper bounds on the Hubble constant during inflation, which depend on the reheating temperature and on the Higgs coupling to the scalar curvature or to the inflaton. Finally we study how a speculative link between Higgs meta-stability and consistence of quantum gravity leads to a sharp prediction for the Higgs and top masses, which is consistent with measured values.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2015

Dipolar dark matter with massive bigravity

Massive gravity theories have been developed as viable IR modifications of gravity motivated by dark energy and the problem of the cosmological constant. On the other hand, modified gravity and modified dark matter theories were developed with the aim of solving the problems of standard cold dark matter at galactic scales. Here we propose to adapt the framework of ghost-free massive bigravity theories to reformulate the problem of dark matter at galactic scales. We investigate a promising alternative to dark matter called dipolar dark matter (DDM) in which two different species of dark matter are separately coupled to the two metrics of bigravity and are linked together by an internal vector field. We show that this model successfully reproduces the phenomenology of dark matter at galactic scales (i.e. MOND) as a result of a mechanism of gravitational polarisation. The model is safe in the gravitational sector, but because of the particular couplings of the matter fields and vector field to the metrics, a ghost in the decoupling limit is present in the dark matter sector. However, it might be possible to push the mass of the ghost beyond the strong coupling scale by an appropriate choice of the parameters of the model. Crucial questions to address in future work are the exact mass of the ghost, and the cosmological implications of the model.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2015

Dissecting the thermal Sunyaev-Zeldovich-gravitational lensing cross-correlation with hydrodynamical simulations

We use the cosmo-OWLS suite of cosmological hydrodynamical simulations, which includes different galactic feedback models, to predict the cross-correlation signal between weak gravitational lensing and the thermal Sunyaev-Zeldovich (tSZ) y-parameter. The predictions are compared to the recent detection reported by van Waerbeke and collaborators. The simulations reproduce the weak lensing-tSZ cross-correlation, ξ{sub yκ}(θ), well. The uncertainty arising from different possible feedback models appears to be important on small scales only (0θ ∼< 1 arcmin), while the amplitude of the correlation on all scales is sensitive to cosmological parameters that control the growth rate of structure (such as σ{sub 8}, Ω{sub m} and Ω{sub b}). This study confirms our previous claim (in Ma et al.) that a significant proportion of the signal originates from the diffuse gas component in low-mass (M{sub halo} ∼< 10{sup 14} M{sub ⊙}) clusters as well as from the region beyond the virial radius. We estimate that approximately 20% of the detected signal comes from low-mass clusters, which corresponds to about 30% of the baryon density of the Universe. The simulations also suggest that more than half of the baryons in the Universe are in the form of diffuse gas outside halos (∼> 5 times the virial radius) which is not hot or dense enough to produce a significant tSZ signal or be observed by X-ray experiments. Finally, we show that future high-resolution tSZ-lensing cross-correlation observations will serve as a powerful tool for discriminating between different galactic feedback models.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Dark matter haloes in the multicomponent model. III. From dwarfs to galaxy clusters

A possibility of DM being multicomponent has a strong implication on resolving decades-long known cosmological problems on small scale. In addition to elastic scattering, the model allows for inelastic interactions, which can be characterized by a ‘velocity kick’ parameter. The simplest 2cDM model with cross-section 0.01 ≲ σ/m < 1cm 2 g -1 and the kick velocity V k ≃100kms -1 have been shown to robustly resolve the missing satellites, core-cusp, and too-big-to-fail problems in N-body cosmological simulations tested on Milky Way (MW)-like haloes of a virial mass ~5 × 10 11 M ⊙ (Papers I & II). With the aim of further constraining the parameter space available for the 2cDM model, we extend our analysis to dwarf and galaxy cluster haloes with their virial mass of ~10 7 -10 8 and ~10 13 -10 14 M ⊙ ⁠, respectively. We find that σ 0 /m ≳ 0.1 cm 2 g -1 is preferentially disfavoured for both dwarfs and galaxy cluster haloes in comparison with observations, while σ 0 /m = 0.001 cm 2 g -1 causes little perceptible difference from that of the CDM counterpart for most of the cross-section’s velocity dependence studied in this work. Our main result is that within the reasonable set of parameters, the 2cDM model can successfully explain the observational trends seen in dwarf galaxy and galaxy cluster haloes, and the model leaves us an open window for other possible alternative DM models.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2016

Cosmological simulations of early black hole formation: halo mergers, tidal disruption, and the conditions for direct collapse

Gravitational collapse of a massive primordial gas cloud is thought to be a promising path for the formation of supermassive black holes in the early universe. We study conditions for the so-called direct collapse (DC) black hole formation in a fully cosmological context. We combine a semianalytic model of early galaxy formation with halo merger trees constructed from dark matter N-body simulations. We locate a total of 68 possible DC sites in a volume of 20 h{sup −1} Mpc on a side. We then perform hydrodynamics simulations for 42 selected halos to study in detail the evolution of the massive clouds within them. We find only two successful cases where the gas clouds rapidly collapse to form stars. In the other cases, gravitational collapse is prevented by the tidal force exerted by a nearby massive halo, which otherwise should serve as a radiation source necessary for DC. Ram pressure stripping disturbs the cloud approaching the source. In many cases, a DC halo and its nearby light source halo merge before the onset of cloud collapse. When the DC halo is assembled through major mergers, the gas density increases rapidly to trigger gravitational instability. Based on our cosmological simulations, we conclude that the event rate of DC is an order of magnitude smaller than reported in previous studies, although the absolute rate is still poorly constrained. It is necessary to follow the dynamical evolution of a DC cloud and its nearby halo(s) in order to determine the critical radiation flux for DC.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2015

Accidental Kähler moduli inflation

We study a model of accidental inflation in type IIB string theory where inflation occurs near the inflection point of a small Kähler modulus. A racetrack structure helps to alleviate the known concern that string-loop corrections may spoil Kähler Moduli Inflation unless having a significant suppression via the string coupling or a special brane setup. Also, the hierarchy of gauge group ranks required for the separation between moduli stabilization and inflationary dynamics is relaxed. The relaxation becomes more significant when we use the recently proposed D-term generated racetrack model.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2015

Inflation and dark energy with a single superfield

We discuss the possibility to construct supergravity models with a single superfield describing inflation as well as the tiny cosmological constant V∼10{sup −120}. One could expect that the simplest way to do it is to study models with a supersymmetric Minkowski vacuum and then slightly uplift them. However, due to the recently proven no-go theorem, such a tiny uplifting cannot be achieved by a small modification of the parameters of the theory. We illustrate this general result by investigation of models with a single chiral superfield recently proposed by Ketov and Terada. We show that the addition of a small constant or a linear term to the superpotential of a model with a stable supersymmetric Minkowski vacuum converts it to an AdS vacuum, which results in a rapid cosmological collapse. One can avoid this problem and uplift a supersymmetric Minkowski vacuum to a dS vacuum with V{sub 0}∼10{sup −120} without violating the no-go theorem by making these extra terms large enough. However, we show that this leads to a strong supersymmetry breaking in the uplifted vacua.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2017

Constraints on the dark matter and dark energy interactions from weak lensing bispectrum tomography

We estimate uncertainties of cosmological parameters for phenomenological interacting dark energy models using weak lensing convergence power spectrum and bispectrum. We focus on the bispectrum tomography and examine how well the weak lensing bispectrum with tomography can constrain the interactions between dark sectors, as well as other cosmological parameters. Employing the Fisher matrix analysis, we forecast parameter uncertainties derived from weak lensing bispectra with a two-bin tomography and place upper bounds on strength of the interactions between the dark sectors. The cosmic shear will be measured from upcoming weak lensing surveys with high sensitivity, thus it enables us to use the higher order correlation functions of weak lensing to constrain the interaction between dark sectors and will potentially provide more stringent results with other observations combined.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Shifted μ -hybrid inflation, gravitino dark matter, and observable gravity waves

We investigate supersymmetric hybrid inflation in a realistic model based on the gauge symmetry SU(4) c × SU(2) L × SU(2) R . The minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM) μ term arises, following Dvali, Lazarides, and Shafi, from the coupling of the MSSM electroweak doublets to a gauge singlet superfield which plays an essential role in inflation. The primordial monopoles are inflated away by arranging that the SU(4) c × SU(2) L × SU(2) R symmetry is broken along the inflationary trajectory. The interplay between the (above) μ coupling, the gravitino mass, and the reheating following inflation is discussed in detail. We explore regions of the parameter space that yield gravitino dark matter and observable gravity waves with the tensor-to-scalar ratio r ~ 10 –4 –10 –3 .

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Probing dark matter with strong gravitational lensing through an effective density slope

ABSTRACT Many dark matter (DM) models that are consistent with current cosmological data show differences in the predicted (sub)halo mass function, especially at sub-galactic scales, where observations are challenging due to the inefficiency of star formation. Strong gravitational lensing has been shown to be a useful tool for detecting dark low-mass (sub)haloes through perturbations in lensing arcs, therefore allowing the testing of different DM scenarios. However, measuring the total mass of a perturber from strong lensing data is challenging. Overestimating or underestimating perturber masses can lead to incorrect inferences about the nature of DM. In this paper, we argue that inferring an effective slope of the DM density profile, which is the power-law slope of perturbers at intermediate radii, where we expect the perturber to have the largest observable effect, is a promising way to circumvent these challenges. Using N-body simulations, we show that (sub)halo populations under different DM scenarios differ in their effective density slope distributions. Using realistic mocks of Hubble Space Telescope observations of strong lensing images, we show that the effective density slope of perturbers can be robustly measured with high enough accuracy to discern between different models. We also present our measurement of the effective density slope $\gamma =1.96\substack{+0.12 \\ -0.12}$ for the perturber in JVAS B1938+666, which is a 2σ outlier of the cold DM scenario. More measurements of this kind are needed to draw robust conclusions about the nature of DM.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2026

Fiducial-cosmology-dependent systematics for the DESI 2024 full-shape analysis

We assess the impact of the fiducial cosmology choice on cosmological inference from full-shape (FS) fits of the galaxy power spectrum in the DESI 2024 Data Release 1 (DR1). Using a suite of AbacusSummit DR1 mock catalogues based on the Planck 2018 best-fit cosmology, we quantify potential systematic shifts introduced by analysing the data under five secondary cosmologies — featuring variations in matter density, thawing dark energy, higher effective number of neutrino species, reduced clustering amplitude, and the DESI DR1 BAO best-fit w 0 w a CDM cosmology — relative to DESI's baseline Planck 2018 cosmology. We investigate two complementary FS analysis approaches: full-modelling (FM) and ShapeFit (SF), each with distinct sensitivities to the assumed fiducial model. Across all tracers, we find for FM that systematic shifts induced by fiducial cosmology mismatches remain well below the DESI DR1 statistical uncertainties, with maximum deviations of 0.22σ DR1 in ΛCDM scenarios and 0.12σ DR1+SN when including SN Ia mock data in extended w 0 w a CDM fits. For SF, the shifts in the compressed parameters remain below 0.45σ DR1 for all tracers and cosmologies.

dark energy experiments↗
DOE OSTI2025

Grand unification at the cosmological collider with chemical potential

We introduce a tree-level chemical potential mechanism for spin-1 particles within cosmological collider physics, allowing them to be detected in primordial non-Gaussianities for masses above the inflationary Hubble scale. We apply this mechanism to orbifold grand unification and the massive unification partners of the standard model gauge bosons. Our mechanism requires at least a pair of massive vector fields which are singlets of the standard model, a condition which is satisfied in the classic “trinification” scenario. Assuming that the gauge hierarchy problem is solved by supersymmetry, gauge coupling running points to unification partners at ~ 10$^{15}$ GeV. We show that, within high-scale inflation, chemical potential enhancement can lead to observably strong signals for trinification partners in future cosmological surveys.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Polarization-shape alignment of IllustrisTNG star-forming galaxies

In star-forming disk galaxies, the radio continuum emission (1–10GHz) powered by star formation has an integrated polarization direction imperfectly aligned with the apparent disk minor axis. This polarization-shape alignment effect was previously observed in a small sample of local spirals. If this is prevalent for disk galaxies out to cosmological redshifts, novel measurements of cosmic birefringence and cosmic shear will be enabled by leveraging radio continuum surveys such as the Square Kilometre Array synergized with galaxy shape measurements. We calculate the polarization-shape misalignment angle for star-forming galaxies in the IllustrisTNG50 simulation at 0 < z < 2, assuming that additional polarized radio emission from an active galactic nucleus is negligible in at least a sizable fraction of the star-forming galaxies. The alignment found for z = 0 is consistent with local spiral data, but significantly deteriorates as redshift increases. Moreover, it degrades toward lower frequencies due to internal Faraday depolarization. Thanks to cosmic redshifting, observing higher-z galaxies at a fixed frequency greatly mitigates degradation due to reduced Faraday depolarization at the source-frame frequency. We present analytic fits to the non-Gaussian misalignment angle distribution, and evaluate Fisher information per galaxy for measuring a polarization rotation angle induced by cosmic birefringence. For observation at 4.8 GHz, the effective root-mean-square misalignment angle σα,eff is 18°, 23° and 33° at z = 0, 1 and 2, respectively. Analyzing N independent galaxies reduces the uncertainty on an isotropic cosmic birefringence signal to σ α,eff /√(N), providing competitive sensitivity once large samples are available. As accurate observation-driven models are not yet available for cosmological galaxy samples, our results motivate pilot observations to empirically characterize polarization-shape alignment, and can facilitate forecasts of cosmology and fundamental physics applications that exploit this effect.

axions↗
DOE OSTI2017

Sample variance in the local measurements of the Hubble constant

The current >3σ tension between the Hubble constant H 0 measured from local distance indicators and from cosmic microwave background is one of the most highly debated issues in cosmology, as it possibly indicates new physics or unknown systematics. In this work, we explore whether this tension can be alleviated by the sample variance in the local measurements, which use a small fraction of the Hubble volume. We use a large-volume cosmological N-body simulation to model the local measurements and to quantify the variance due to local density fluctuations and sample selection. We explicitly take into account the inhomogeneous spatial distribution of type Ia supernovae. Despite the faithful modelling of the observations, our results confirm previous findings that sample variance in the local Hubble constant ($H$ $^{loc}_{0}$) measurements is small; we find σ ($H$ $^{loc}_{0}$)=0.31km s -1 Mpc -1 a nearly negligible fraction of the ~6 km s -1 Mpc -1 necessary to explain the difference between the local and global H 0 measurements. While the H 0 tension could in principle be explained by our local neighbourhood being a underdense region of radius ~150 Mpc, the extreme required underdensity of such a void (δ ≃ -0.8) makes it very unlikely in a ΛCDM universe, and it also violates existing observational constraints. Furthermore, sample variance in a ΛCDM universe cannot appreciably alleviate the tension in H 0 measurements even after taking into account the inhomogeneous selection of type Ia supernovae.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗