We investigate the energy-momentum balance in the perforating collision of a point particle with an infinitely thin planar domain wall within the linearized gravity in arbitrary dimensions. Since the metric of the wall increases with distance, the wall and the particle are never free, and their energy-momentum balance involves not only the instantaneous kinetic momenta, but also the nonlocal contribution of gravitational stresses. However, careful analysis shows that the stresses can be unambiguously divided between the colliding objects leading to definition of the gravitationally dressed momenta. These take gravity into account in the same way as the potential energy does in the nonrelativistic theory, but our treatment is fully relativistic. Another unusual feature of our problem is the nonvanishing flux of the total energy-momentum tensor through the lateral surface of the world tube. In this case the zero divergence of the energy-momentum tensor does not imply conservation of the total momentum defined as the integral over the spacelike section of the tube. But one can still define the conservation law infinitesimally, passing to time derivatives of the momenta. Using this definition we establish the momentum balance in terms of the dressed particle and wall momenta.

We present a complete list of the independent dimension-7 operators that are constructed using the standard model degrees of freedom and are invariant under the standard model gauge group. This list contains only 20 independent operators, far fewer than the 63 operators available at dimension 6. All of these dimension-7 operators contain fermions and violate lepton number, and 7 of the 20 violate baryon number as well. This result extends the standard model effective field theory and allows a more detailed exploration of the structure and properties of possible deformations from the standard model Lagrangian.

Within the superfield approach, we formulate two different extensions of the Wess-Zumino model and super-QED with Horava-Lifshitz-like additive terms, discuss their quantum properties and calculate lower contributions to the effective action. In the case of the gauge theory, the one-loop effective potential turns out to be gauge independent.

We discuss the quantum dynamics of a Dirac fermion particle in the Poincaré gauge gravitational field. The minimal as well as the Pauli-type nonminimal coupling of a fermion with external fields is studied, bringing into consideration the notions of the translational and the Lorentz gravitational moments. The anomalous gravitomagnetic and gravitoelectric moments are ruled out on the basis of the covariance arguments. We derive the general Foldy-Wouthuysen transformation for an arbitrary configuration of the Poincaré gauge gravitational field without assuming it is weak. Making use of the Foldy-Wouthuysen Hamiltonian for the Dirac particle coupled to a magnetic field in a noninertial reference system, we analyze the recent experimental data and obtain bounds on the spacetime torsion.

We point out that the duality symmetry of free electromagnetism does not hold in the quantum theory if an arbitrary classical gravitational background is present. The symmetry breaks in the process of renormalization, as also happens with conformal invariance. We show that a similar duality anomaly appears for a massless scalar field in $1+1$ dimensions.

Compact binaries in hyperbolic orbits are plausible gravitational-wave (GW) sources for the upcoming and planned GW observatories. We develop an efficient prescription to compute post-Newtonian (PN)-accurate ready-to-use GW polarization states for spinning compact binaries, influenced by the dominant-order spin-orbit interactions, in hyperbolic orbits. This is achieved by invoking the 1.5PN-accurate quasi-Keplerian parametrization for the radial sector of the orbital dynamics. We probe the influences of spins and the gravitational radiation reaction on $h_{+}$ and $h_{\times }$ during the hyperbolic passage. It turns out that both polarization states exhibit the memory effect for GWs from spinning compact binaries in hyperbolic orbits. In contrast, only the cross-polarization state exhibits the memory effect for GWs from nonspinning compact binaries. Additionally, we compute 1PN-accurate amplitude corrected GW polarization states for hyperbolic nonspinning compact binaries in a fully parametric manner and perform initial comparisons with the existing waveforms.

In this work a dynamical system approach to nonminimal coupled $f(R)$ theories is made. The solutions of three distinct models are obtained and their stability and physical interpretation are studied to ascertain their viability as candidates for dark energy. Comparison is drawn with previous works in the context of $f(R)$ and nonminimally coupled models.

This paper proposes a systematic study of cosmological signatures of modifications of gravity via the presence of a scalar field with a multiplicative coupling to the electromagnetic Lagrangian. We show that, in this framework, variations of the fine structure constant, violations of the distance-duality relation, evolution of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature and CMB distortions are intimately and unequivocally linked. This enables one to put very stringent constraints on possible violations of the distance-duality relation, on the evolution of the CMB temperature and on admissible CMB distortions using current constraints on the fine structure constant. Alternatively, this offers interesting possibilities to test a wide range of theories of gravity by analyzing several data sets concurrently. We discuss results obtained using current data as well as some forecasts for future data sets such as those coming from EUCLID or the SKA.

In a recent paper we showed that in shift-symmetric Horndeski theory the scalar field is forced to obtain a nontrivial configuration in black hole spacetimes, unless a linear coupling with the Gauss–Bonnet invariant is tuned away. As a result, black holes generically have hair in this theory. In this companion paper, we first review our argument and discuss it in more detail. We then present actual black hole solutions in the simplest case of a theory with the linear scalar-Gauss–Bonnet coupling. We generate exact solutions numerically for a wide range of values of the coupling and also construct analytic solutions perturbatively in the small-coupling limit. Comparison of the two types of solutions indicates that nonlinear effects that are not captured by the perturbative solution lead to a finite area, as opposed to a central, singularity. Remarkably, black holes have a minimum size, controlled by the length scale associated with the scalar-Gauss–Bonnet coupling. We also compute some phenomenological observables for the numerical solution for a wide range of values of the scalar-Gauss–Bonnet coupling. Deviations from the Schwarzschild geometry are generically very small.

We present a model for studying the formation and evaporation of nonsingular (quantum corrected) black holes. The model is based on a generalized form of the dimensionally reduced, spherically symmetric Einstein-Hilbert action and includes a suitably generalized Polyakov action to provide a mechanism for radiation backreaction. The equations of motion describing self-gravitating scalar field collapse are derived in local form both in null co-ordinates and in Painleve-Gullstrand (flat slice) co-ordinates. They provide the starting point for numerical studies of complete spacetimes containing dynamical horizons that bound a compact trapped region. Such spacetimes have been proposed in the past as solutions to the information loss problem because they possess neither an event horizon nor a singularity. Since the equations of motion in our model are derived from a diffeomorphism invariant action they preserve the constraint algebra and the resulting energy momentum tensor is manifestly conserved.

We further develop a theory of self-resonance after inflation in a large class of models involving multiple scalar fields. We concentrate on inflaton potentials that carry an internal symmetry, but also analyze weak breaking of this symmetry. This is the second part of a two-part series of papers. Here in part 2 we develop an understanding of the resonance structure from the underlying many-particle quantum mechanics. We begin with a small-amplitude analysis, which obtains the central resonant wave numbers, and relate it to perturbative processes. We show that the dominant resonance structure is determined by (i) the nonrelativistic scattering of many quantum particles and (ii) the application of Bose-Einstein statistics to the adiabatic and isocurvature modes, as introduced in part 1 [M. P. Hertzberg et al., Phys. Rev. D 90, 123528 (2014)]. Other resonance structures are understood in terms of annihilations and decays. We set up Bunch-Davies vacuum initial conditions during inflation and track the evolution of modes including Hubble expansion. In the case of a complex inflaton carrying an internal U(1) symmetry, we show that when the isocurvature instability is active, the inflaton fragments into separate regions of $\varphi$-particles and anti-$\varphi$-particles. We then introduce a weak breaking of the U(1) symmetry; this can lead to baryogenesis, as shown by some of us recently [M. P. Hertzberg and J. Karouby, Phys. Lett. B 737, 34 (2014); Phys. Rev. D 89, 063523 (2014)]. Then using our results, we compute corrections to the particle-antiparticle asymmetry from this preheating era.

We develop a theory of self-resonance after inflation. We study a large class of models involving multiple scalar fields with an internal symmetry. For illustration, we often specialize to dimension-four potentials, but we derive results for general potentials. This is the first part of a two part series of papers. Here in part 1 we especially focus on the behavior of long-wavelength modes, which are found to govern most of the important physics. Since the inflaton background spontaneously breaks the time-translation symmetry and the internal symmetry, we obtain Goldstone modes; these are the adiabatic and isocurvature modes. We find general conditions on the potential for when a large instability band exists for these modes at long wavelengths. For the adiabatic mode, this is determined by a sound speed derived from the time-averaged potential, while for the isocurvature mode, this is determined by a speed derived from a time-averaged auxiliary potential. Interestingly, we find that this instability band usually exists for one of these classes of modes, rather than both simultaneously. We focus on backgrounds that evolve radially in field space, as set up by inflation, and also mention circular orbits, as relevant to $Q$-balls. In part 2 [M. P. Hertzberg et al., Phys. Rev. D 90, 123529 (2014)] we derive the central behavior from the underlying description of many-particle quantum mechanics, and introduce a weak breaking of the symmetry to study corrections to particle-antiparticle production from preheating.

Motivated by recent IceCube observations we reexamine the idea that microquasars are high energy neutrino emitters. By stretching to the maximum the parameters of the Fermi engine we show that the nearby high-mass x-ray binary LS 5039 could accelerate protons up to above about 20 PeV. These highly relativistic protons could subsequently interact with the plasma producing neutrinos up to the maximum observed energies. After that we adopt the spatial density distribution of high-mass x-ray binaries obtained from the deep INTEGRAL Galactic plane survey, and we assume LS 5039 typifies the microquasar population to demonstrate that these powerful compact sources could provide a dominant contribution to the diffuse neutrino flux recently observed by IceCube.

On large scales, the anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) reflect not only the primordial density field but also the energy gain when photons traverse decaying gravitational potentials of large scale structure, what is called the integrated Sachs-Wolfe (ISW) effect. Decomposing the anisotropy signal into a primordial piece and an ISW component, the main secondary effect on large scales, is more urgent than ever as cosmologists strive to understand the Universe on those scales. We present a likelihood technique for extracting the ISW signal combining measurements of the CMB, the distribution of galaxies, and maps of gravitational lensing. We test this technique with simulated data showing that we can successfully reconstruct the ISW map using all the data sets together. Then we present the ISW map obtained from a combination of real data: the NRAO VLA sky survey (NVSS) galaxy survey, temperature anisotropies, and lensing maps made by the Planck satellite. This map shows that, with the data sets used and assuming linear physics, there is no evidence, from the reconstructed ISW signal in the Cold Spot region, for an entirely ISW origin of this large scale anomaly in the CMB. However a large scale structure origin from low redshift voids outside the NVSS redshift range is still possible. Finally we show that future surveys, thanks to a better large scale lensing reconstruction will be able to improve the reconstruction signal to noise which is now mainly coming from galaxy surveys.

We report a direct detection of muon-induced high-energy neutrons with a 12-liter neutron detector fabricated with EJ-301 liquid scintillator operating at Soudan mine for about two years. The detector response to energy from a few MeV up to $\sim 20\mathrm{MeV}$ has been calibrated using radioactive sources and cosmic-ray muons. Subsequently, we have calculated the scintillation efficiency for nuclear recoils, up to a few hundred MeV, using Birks’ law in the Monte Carlo simulation. Data from an exposure of 655.1 days were analyzed and neutron-induced recoil events were observed in the energy region from 4 to 50 MeV, corresponding to fast neutrons with kinetic energy up to a few hundred MeV, depending on the scattering angle. Combining with the Monte Carlo simulation, the measured muon-induced fast neutron flux is determined to be $(2.23\pm 0.52(\text{sta})\pm 0.99(\text{sys}))\times {10}^{-9}{\mathrm{cm}}^{-2}{\mathrm{s}}^{-1}$ ($E_n>20\mathrm{MeV}$), in a reasonable agreement with the model prediction. The muon flux is found to be ($1.65\pm 0.02(\text{sta})\pm 0.1(\text{sys}))\times {10}^{-7}{\mathrm{cm}}^{-2}{\mathrm{s}}^{-1}$ ($E_{\mu }>1\mathrm{GeV}$), consistent with other measurements. As a result, the muon-induced high-energy gamma-ray flux is simulated to be $7.08\times {10}^{-7}{\mathrm{cm}}^{-2}{\mathrm{s}}^{-1}$ ($E_{\gamma }>1\mathrm{MeV}$) for the depth of Soudan.

It is shown that a matrix model with $\mathrm{SO}(d,d)$ global symmetry is derived from a generalized Yang-Mills theory on the standard Courant algebroid. This model keeps all the positive features of the well-studied type IIB matrix model, and it has many additional welcome properties. We show that it not only captures the dynamics of spacetime, but it should be associated with the dynamics of phase space. This is supported by a large set of classical solutions of its equations of motion, which corresponds to phase spaces of noncommutative curved manifolds and points to a new mechanism of emergent gravity. The model possesses a symmetry that exchanges positions and momenta, in analogy to quantum mechanics. It is argued that the emergence of phase space in the model is an essential feature for the investigation of the precise relation of matrix models to string theory and quantum gravity.

We study the phenomenology of heavy gauge bosons at the LHC in a nonuniversal gauge interaction model with the separate electroweak SU(2) gauge group for the third generation. Considered are the Drell–Yan processes into the final states of dilepton, dijet, ${\tau }^{-}{\tau }^{+}$, and $t\overline{t}$ for the $Z^{\prime }$ boson and those of the lepton-neutrino for the $W^{\prime }$ boson. We find that the present LHC data provides the most stringent lower bounds on the masses of the heavy gauge bosons, $m_{Z^{\prime }}>1.8\mathrm{TeV}$ for ${\sin }^2\varphi >0.07$ and $m_{W^{\prime }}>2\mathrm{TeV}$ for ${\sin }^2\varphi >0.15$, where $\varphi$ is the mixing angle of two SU(2) gauge groups.

The conjecture that some unknown symmetry is responsible for keeping the Higgs boson light at 125 GeV does not hold for the Standard Model, where the coefficient of the quadratic divergence of Higgs boson self-energy is far from zero. We show that such a cancellation can be achieved in two-Higgs doublet models, by virtue of which all the scalars remain at the electroweak scale and the naturalness problem is avoided. We explore the consequences of such cancellations in different two-Higgs doublet models with no flavor-changing neutral current, and show that the parameter space becomes tightly constrained; in particular, the ratio of two vacuum expectation values, $\tan \beta$, no longer remains a free parameter but turns out to be a function of the quartic couplings.

We consider the spin-zero spectrum of a strongly coupled gauge theory. In particular, we focus on the dynamical mass of the isosinglet scalar resonance in the presence of a four-fermion interaction external to the gauge dynamics. This is motivated by the extended technicolor framework for dynamical electroweak symmetry breaking. Applying the large-$N$ limit, we sum all the leading-order contributions, and find that the corrections to the mass of the isosinglet scalar resonance can be large, potentially reducing its value from $\mathcal{O}(1)\mathrm{TeV}$ to the observed value of 125 GeV.

High-luminosity fixed-target neutrino experiments present a new opportunity to search for light sub-GeV dark matter and associated new forces. We analyze the physics reach of these experiments to light leptophobic dark states coupled to the Standard Model via gauging the $U(1{)}_B$ baryon current. When the baryonic vector is light, and can decay to dark matter, we find that the MiniBooNE experiment in its current beam-dump configuration can extend sensitivity to the baryonic fine structure constant down to ${\alpha }_B\sim {10}^{-6}$. This is significantly below the existing limits over much of the sub-GeV mass range currently inaccessible to direct detection experiments.