Constraining Primordial Black Hole Formation from Single-Field Inflation.

The most widely studied formation mechanism of a primordial black hole is collapse of large-amplitude perturbation on small scales generated in single-field inflation. In this Letter, we calculate one-loop correction to the large-scale power spectrum in a model with sharp transition of the second slow-roll parameter. We find that models producing an appreciable amount of primordial black holes induce nonperturbative coupling on a large scale probed by cosmic microwave background radiation. Our result implies that a small-scale power spectrum can be constrained by large-scale cosmological observations.

Why Must Primordial Non-Gaussianity Be Very Small?

One-loop correction to the power spectrum in generic single-field inflation is calculated by using standard perturbation theory. Because of the enhancement inversely proportional to the observed red tilt of the spectral index of curvature perturbation, the correction turns out to be much larger than previously anticipated. As a result, the primordial non-Gaussianity must be much smaller than the current observational bound in order to warrant the validity of cosmological perturbation theory.

Constraints on primordial black holes.

We update the constraints on the fraction of the Universe that may have gone into primordial black holes (PBHs) over the mass range 10-5to 1050 g. Those smaller than ∼1015 g would have evaporated by now due to Hawking radiation, so their abundance at formation is constrained by the effects of evaporated particles on big bang nucleosynthesis, the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the Galactic and extragalacticγ-ray and cosmic ray backgrounds and the possible generation of stable Planck mass relics. PBHs larger than ∼1015 g are subject to a variety of constraints associated with gravitational lensing, dynamical effects, influence on large-scale structure, accretion and gravitational waves. We discuss the constraints on both the initial collapse fraction and the current fraction of the dark matter (DM) in PBHs at each mass scale but stress that many of the constraints are associated with observational or theoretical uncertainties. We also consider indirect constraints associated with the amplitude of the primordial density fluctuations, such as second-order tensor perturbations andµ-distortions arising from the effect of acoustic reheating on the CMB, if PBHs are created from the high-σpeaks of nearly Gaussian fluctuations. Finally we discuss how the constraints are modified if the PBHs have an extended mass function, this being relevant if PBHs provide some combination of the DM, the LIGO/Virgo coalescences and the seeds for cosmic structure. Even if PBHs make a small contribution to the DM, they could play an important cosmological role and provide a unique probe of the early Universe.

Toward the detection of gravitational waves under non-Gaussian noises II. Independent component analysis.

We introduce a new analysis method to deal with stationary non-Gaussian noises in gravitational wave detectors in terms of the independent component analysis. First, we consider the simplest case where the detector outputs are linear combinations of the inputs, consisting of signals and various noises, and show that this method may be helpful to increase the signal-to-noise ratio. Next, we take into account the time delay between the inputs and the outputs. Finally, we extend our method to nonlinearly correlated noises and show that our method can identify the coupling coefficients and remove non-Gaussian noises. Although we focus on gravitational wave data analysis, our methods are applicable to the detection of any signals under non-Gaussian noises.

Toward the detection of gravitational waves under non-Gaussian noises I. Locally optimal statistic.

After reviewing the standard hypothesis test and the matched filter technique to identify gravitational waves under Gaussian noises, we introduce two methods to deal with non-Gaussian stationary noises. We formulate the likelihood ratio function under weakly non-Gaussian noises through the Edgeworth expansion and strongly non-Gaussian noises in terms of a new method we call Gaussian mapping where the observed marginal distribution and the two-body correlation function are fully taken into account. We then apply these two approaches to Student's t-distribution which has a larger tails than Gaussian. It is shown that while both methods work well in the case the non-Gaussianity is small, only the latter method works well for highly non-Gaussian case.

Reheating the universe once more: the dissipation of acoustic waves as a novel probe of primordial inhomogeneities on even smaller scales.

We provide a simple but robust bound on the primordial curvature perturbation in the range 10(4) Mpc(-1)

Cosmology based on f(R) gravity admits 1 eV sterile neutrinos.

It is shown that the tension between recent neutrino oscillation experiments, favoring sterile neutrinos with masses of the order of 1 eV, and cosmological data which impose stringent constraints on neutrino masses from the free streaming suppression of density fluctuations, can be resolved in models of the present accelerated expansion of the Universe based on f(R) gravity.

Primordial non-Gaussianities of gravitational waves in the most general single-field inflation model with second-order field equations.

We completely clarify the feature of primordial non-Gaussianities of tensor perturbations in the most general single-field inflation model with second-order field equations. It is shown that the most general cubic action for the tensor perturbation h(ij) is composed only of two contributions, one with two spacial derivatives and the other with one time derivative on each h(ij). The former is essentially identical to the cubic term that appears in Einstein gravity and predicts a squeezed shape, while the latter newly appears in the presence of the kinetic coupling to the Einstein tensor and predicts an equilateral shape. Thus, only two shapes appear in the graviton bispectrum of the most general single-field inflation model, which could open a new clue to the identification of inflationary gravitational waves in observations of cosmic microwave background anisotropies as well as direct detection experiments.

Inflation driven by the Galileon field.

We propose a new class of inflation model, G inflation, which has a Galileon-like nonlinear derivative interaction of the form G(ϕ,(∇ϕ)(2))□ϕ in the Lagrangian with the resultant equations of motion being of second order. It is shown that (almost) scale-invariant curvature fluctuations can be generated even in the exactly de Sitter background and that the tensor-to-scalar ratio can take a significantly larger value than in the standard inflation models, violating the standard consistency relation. Furthermore, violation of the null energy condition can occur without any instabilities. As a result, the spectral index of tensor modes can be blue, which makes it easier to observe quantum gravitational waves from inflation by the planned gravitational-wave experiments such as LISA and DECIGO as well as by the upcoming CMB experiments such as Planck and CMBpol.

Gravitational-wave background as a probe of the primordial black-hole abundance.

The formation of a significant number of black holes (PBHs) is realized if and only if primordial density fluctuations have a large amplitude, which means that tensor perturbations generated from these scalar perturbations as a second-order effect are also large and comparable to the observational data. We show that pulsar timing data essentially rule out PBHs with 10;{2}-10;{4}M_{middle dot in circle}, which were previously considered as a candidate of intermediate-mass black holes, and that PBHs with a mass range of 10;{20} to 10;{26} g, which serves as a candidate of dark matter, may be probed by future space-based laser interferometers and atomic interferometers.

Association of polymorphism of estrogen receptor-alpha gene with circulating levels of adiponectin in postmenopausal women with type 2 diabetes.

AIM: Menopause is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD) in women because of the reduction in endogenous estrogen. Recently, single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of the estrogen receptor alpha (ESR-1) gene (c.454-397T>C) associated with the prognosis of myocardial infarction in postmenopausal women were identified; however, the mechanism by which genetic variation of ESR-1 contributes to the pathogenesis of CVD is unknown. Circulating levels of adipokines and inflammatory cytokines predict CVD risk; hence, this study aimed to investigate whether ESR-1 genotypes (c.454-397T>C) might influence circulating levels of adipokines and inflammatory cytokines in postmenopausal women with type 2 diabetes. METHODS: Sixty-three postmenopausal women with type 2 diabetes were recruited. Serum levels of adiponectin, resistin, interleukin-6 (IL-6), and high-sensitive C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) were determined. RESULTS: The genotype of ESR-1 was closely associated with serum adiponectin, which was decreased in subjects with the T allele and was lowest in those with the T/T genotype. Multiple logistic regression analysis revealed independent contribution of the homozygote for the T allele to low serum levels of adiponectin. CONCLUSION: The T allele of the c.454-397T>C SNP of ESR-1 is associated with low serum levels of adiponectin, which may lead to a high risk of CVD in postmenopausal women.

Thermal background can solve the cosmological moduli problem.

It is shown that the coherent field oscillation of moduli fields with weak or TeV scale masses can dissipate its energy efficiently if they have a derivative coupling to standard bosonic fields in a thermal state. This mechanism provides a new solution to the cosmological moduli problem without creating too much entropy at late time.

Cosmological constant from degenerate vacua.

Under the hypothesis that the cosmological constant vanishes in the true ground state with lowest possible energy density, we argue that the observed small but finite vacuumlike energy density can be explained if we consider a theory with two or more degenerate perturbative vacua, which are unstable due to quantum tunneling, and if we still live in one of such states. An example is given making use of the topological vacua in non-Abelian gauge theories.