The 15 yr pulsar timing data set collected by the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav) shows positive evidence for the presence of a low-frequency gravitational-wave (GW) background. In this paper, we investigate potential cosmological interpretations of this signal, specifically cosmic inflation, scalar-induced GWs, first-order phase transitions, cosmic strings, and domain walls. We find that, with the exception of stable cosmic strings of field theory origin, all these models can reproduce the observed signal. When compared to the standard interpretation in terms of inspiraling supermassive black hole binaries (SMBHBs), many cosmological models seem to provide a better fit resulting in Bayes factors in the range from 10 to 100. However, these results strongly depend on modeling assumptions about the cosmic SMBHB population and, at this stage, should not be regarded as evidence for new physics. Furthermore, we identify excluded parameter regions where the predicted GW signal from cosmological sources significantly exceeds the NANOGrav signal. These parameter constraints are independent of the origin of the NANOGrav signal and illustrate how pulsar timing data provide a new way to constrain the parameter space of these models. Finally, we search for deterministic signals produced by models of ultralight dark matter (ULDM) and dark matter substructures in the Milky Way. We find no evidence for either of these signals and thus report updated constraints on these models. In the case of ULDM, these constraints outperform torsion balance and atomic clock constraints for ULDM coupled to electrons, muons, or gluons.

In this paper, we investigate the asymptotic structure of gauge theories in decelerating and spatially flat Friedmann-Lemaître-Robertson-Walker universes. Firstly, we thoroughly explore the asymptotic symmetries of electrodynamics in this background, which reveals a major inconsistency already present in the flat case. Taking advantage of this treatment, we derive the associated memory effects, discussing their regime of validity and differences with respect to their flat counterparts. Next, we extend our analysis to non-Abelian Yang-Mills, coupling it dynamically and simultaneously to a Dirac spinor and a complex scalar field. Within this novel setting, we examine the possibility of constructing Poisson superbrackets based on the covariant phase space formalism.