Cosmological collider signatures of massive vectors from non-Gaussian gravitational waves

Wang, Yi; Zhu, Yuhang

doi:10.1088/1475-7516/2020/04/049

Cited by 34 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 70 publications

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“…A gravitational origin of dark matter is particularly compelling given the dearth of evidence for the interactions between dark matter and the Standard Model of particle physics upon which conventional WIMP models are premised. More generally, early universe inflationary cosmology has risen to the fore of particle physics, in particular, under the banner of Cosmological Collider Physics [20][21][22], and the Cosmological Bootstrap Program [23][24][25], with the hope that one may use the cosmic microwave background non-Gaussianity as a particle detector [21,26,27,27,28]. Complementary to this, reheating as Cosmological Heavy Ion Collider [29], namely, reheating as a playground in which to study thermalization in quantum field theory, has seen a recent resurgence [29][30][31][32][33], as has reheating as a testing ground for Higgs physics [34].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Catastrophic Production of Slow Gravitinos

Kolb,

Long,

McDonough

2021

Preprint

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We study gravitational particle production of the massive spin-3/2 Rarita-Schwinger field, and its close relative, the gravitino, in FRW cosmological spacetimes. For masses lighter than the value of the Hubble expansion rate after inflation, m 3/2 H, we find catastrophic gravitational particle production, wherein the number of gravitationally produced particles is divergent, caused by a transient vanishing of the helicity-1/2 gravitino sound speed. In contrast with the conventional gravitino problem, the spectrum of produced particles is dominated by those with momentum at the UV cutoff. This suggests a breakdown of effective field theory, which might be cured by new degrees of freedom that emerge in the UV. We study the UV completion of the Rarita-Schwinger field, namely N = 1, d = 4, supergravity. We reproduce known results for models with a single superfield and models with an arbitrary number of chiral superfields, find a simple geometric expression for the sound speed in the latter case, and extend this to include nilpotent constrained superfields and orthogonal constrained superfields. We find supergravity models where the catastrophe is cured and models where it persists. Insofar as quantizing the gravitino is tantamount to quantizing gravity, as is the case in any UV completion of supergravity, the models exhibiting catastrophic production are prime examples of 4dimensional effective field theories that become inconsistent when gravity is quantized, suggesting a possible link to the Swampland program. We propose the Gravitino Swampland Conjecture, which is consistent with and indeed follows from the KKLT and Large Volume scenarios for moduli stabilization in string theory.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Catastrophic Production of Slow Gravitinos

Kolb,

Long,

McDonough

2021

Preprint

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“…(We will henceforth refer to this oscillatory shape the "signal.") Detecting such a signal at this so-called cosmological collider offers direct evidence of new physics particles and a tool of studying their properties [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

In search of large signals at the cosmological collider

Wang

Xianyu

2020

J. High Energ. Phys.

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We study the production of massive gauge bosons during inflation from the axion-type coupling to the inflaton and the corresponding oscillatory features in the primordial non-Gaussianity. In a window in which both the gauge boson mass and the chemical potential are large, the signal is potentially reachable by near-future large scale structure probes. This scenario covers a new region in oscillation frequency which is not populated by previously known cosmological collider models. We also demonstrate how to properly include the exponential factor and discuss the subtleties in obtaining power dependence of the gauge boson mass in the signal estimate. *

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“…Additionally, there has been significant recent interest in the 'cosmological collider physics' program [20][21][22] (see also the related 'cosmological bootstrap' [23][24][25]) of studying the imprint in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) of fields with masses heavier than the Hubble scale during inflation, see e.g. [26][27][28][29][30][31][32]. This formalism has been applied to higher spin bosons [20,33,34], as well as higher spin fermions [35], and supersymmetric higher spin theory ( [36][37][38][39][40]) [35].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Higher Spin Dark Matter

Alexander,

Jenks,

McDonough

2020

Preprint

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Little is known about dark matter beyond the fact that it does not interact with the standard model or itself, or else does so incredibly weakly. A natural candidate, given the history of nogo theorems against their interactions, are higher spin fields. Here we develop the scenario of higher spin (spin s > 2) dark matter. We show that the gravitational production of superheavy bosonic higher spin fields during inflation can provide all the dark matter we observe today. We consider the observable signatures, and find a potential characteristic signature of bosonic higher spin dark matter in directional direct detection; we find that there are distinct spin-dependent contributions to the double differential recoil rate, which complement the oscillatory imprint of higher spin fields in the cosmic microwave background. We consider the extension to higher spin fermions and supersymmetric higher spins.

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Cosmological collider signatures of massive vectors from non-Gaussian gravitational waves

Cited by 34 publications

References 70 publications

Catastrophic Production of Slow Gravitinos

Catastrophic Production of Slow Gravitinos

In search of large signals at the cosmological collider

Higher Spin Dark Matter

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