Screening mechanisms are a natural method for suppressing long-range forces in scalar-tensor theories as they link the local background density to their strength. Focusing on Brans-Dicke theories, those including a non-minimal coupling between a scalar degree of freedom and the Ricci scalar, we study the origin of these screening mechanisms from a field theory perspective, considering the influence

It is conceivable that a bosonic dark matter (DM) with non-gravitational interactions with SM particles will be accumulated at the center of a neutron star (NS) and can lead to black hole formation. In contrast to previous works with a fixed NS temperature, we dynamically determine the formation of Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) for a given set of DM parameters, namely the DM-neutron scattering cross-section

We consider the effects of relaxing the assumption that gravitational waves composing the stochastic gravitational wave background (SGWB) are uncorrelated between frequencies in analyses of the data from Pulsar Timing Arrays (PTAs). While uncorrelated monochromatic plane waves are often a good approximation, a background composed of unresolved astrophysical sources cannot be exactly uncorrelated since

Recent outcomes by the DESI Collaboration have shed light on a possible slightly evolving dark energy, challenging the standard ΛCDM paradigm. To better understand dark energy nature, high-redshift observations like gamma-ray burst data become essential for mapping the universe expansion history, provided they are calibrated with other probes. To this aim, we calibrate the Ep - Eiso (or Amati) correlation

The reduced speed of light approximation (RSLA) has been employed to speed up radiative transfer simulations of reionization by a factor of ≳ 5-10. However, it has been shown to cause significant errors in the HI-ionizing background near reionization's end in simulations of representative cosmological volumes. We show that using the RSLA is, to a good approximation, equivalent to re-scaling the global

We describe a novel proposal for inflationary magnetogenesis by identifying the non-Abelian sector of Spectator Chromo Natural Inflation (SCNI) with the SU(2)L sector of the Standard Model. This mechanism relies on the recently discovered attractor of SCNI in the strong backreaction regime, where the gauge fields do not decay on super-horizon scales and their backreaction leads to a stable new trajectory

One of the main obstacles for the signal extraction of the three point correlation function using photometric surveys, such as the Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), will be the prohibitive computation time required for dealing with a vast quantity of sources. Brute force algorithms, which naively scales as 𝒪(N3) with the number of objects, can be further improved with tree

We develop a C++ package of the STOchastic LAttice Simulation (STOLAS) of cosmic inflation. It performs the numerical lattice simulation in the application of the stochastic-δ N formalism. STOLAS can directly compute the three-dimensional map of the observable curvature perturbation without estimating its statistical properties. In its application to two toy models of inflation, chaotic inflation and

We study spinoptics equations in the Schwarzschild spacetime. We demonstrate that using the explicit and hidden symmetries of this metric one can explicitly solve the equations for complex null tetrad associated with null rays representing photon's and graviton's motion. This allows one to integrate the spinoptics equations both for the electromagnetic and gravitational waves. It is shown that the

We perform an observational study of modified gravity considering a potential inflationary interpretation of pulsar timing arrays (PTA). We use a motivated model known as no slip in which the gravitational wave propagation is modified. Specifically, by using two different parametrizations for the model, we find the approximate transfer functions for tensor perturbations. In this way, we obtain the

Because of their extreme densities and consequently, gravitational potential, compact objects such as neutron stars can prove to be excellent captors of dark matter particles. Considering purely gravitational interactions between dark and hadronic matter, we construct dark matter admixed stars composed of two-fluid matter subject to current astrophysical constraints on maximum mass and tidal deformability

Light dark matter (DM) with mass around the GeV scale faces weaker bounds from direct detection experiments. If DM couples strongly to a light mediator, it is possible to have observable direct detection rate. However, this also leads to a thermally under-abundant DM relic due to efficient annihilation into light mediators. We propose a novel scenario where a first-order phase transition (FOPT) occurring

The stochastic formalism of inflation allows us to describe the scalar-field dynamics in a non-perturbative way. The correspondence between the diffusion and Schrödinger equations makes it possible to exhaustively construct analytical solutions in stochastic inflation. Those exact statistical quantities such as distribution and correlation functions have one-to-one correspondence to the exactly solvable

So far no diffuse emissions in dwarf spheroidal satellites of the Milky Way have ever been observed. Given that dwarf galaxies are predominantly composed of Dark Matter, the discovery of these signals could offer valuable insights into understanding the nature of Dark Matter. We present “diffSph”, a Python tool which in its present version provides fast predictions of such diffuse signals in radio

The EHT observation revealed event horizon-scale images of the supermassive black holes Sgr A* and M87* and these results are consistent with the shadow of a Kerr black hole as predicted by general relativity. However, Kerr-like rotating black holes in modified gravity theories can not ruled out, as they provide a crucial testing ground for these theories through EHT observations. It motivates us to

Cosmological data probe massive neutrinos via their effects on the geometry of the Universe and the growth of structure, both of which are degenerate with the late-time expansion history. We clarify the nature of these degeneracies and the individual roles of both probes in neutrino mass inference. Geometry is strongly sensitive to neutrino masses: within ΛCDM, the primary cosmic microwave background

We investigate how the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) impacts the predicted signals in near-future direct detection experiments for non-standard dark matter (DM) interactions, using the Auriga cosmological simulations. We extract the local DM distribution of a simulated Milky Way-like halo that has an LMC analogue and study the expected signals in DarkSide-20k, SBC, DARWIN/XLZD, SuperCDMS, NEWS-G, and

We explore the scales and the extent of disagreement between Planck PR3 and Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) DR4 data. Planck and ACT data have substantial overlap in the temperature anisotropy data between scales corresponding to multipoles ℓ ≃ 600–2500 with complementing coverage of larger angular scales by Planck and smaller angular scales by ACT. Since the same cosmology should govern the anisotropy

Ultra-light primordial black holes (PBHs) with masses MPBH < 5 × 108g can dominate transiently the energy budget of the Universe and reheat the Universe through their evaporation taking place before Big Bang Nucleosynthesis. The isocurvature energy density fluctuations associated to the inhomogeneous distribution of a population of such PBHs can induce an abundant production of GWs due to second-order

We reconsider linear perturbations around general Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) cosmological backgrounds. Exploiting gauge freedom involving only time reparametrizations, we write down classical background solutions analytically, for an arbitrary number of fluid components. We then show that the time evolution of scalar and tensor adiabatic perturbations are governed by Schrödinger-like

We investigate the projected minimum constraints set by next-generation gravitational wave detectors Einstein Telescope and LISA on the abundance of primordial black holes relative to dark matter from both resolvable mergers and the stochastic gravitational wave background (SGWB) for extended primordial black hole mass distributions. We consider broad power law distributions for a range of negative

f(R) theories of modified gravity may be compatible with current observations if the deviations from general relativity are sufficiently well screened in dense environments. In recent work [1] we have shown that approximations commonly used to assess whether galaxies are screened, or unscreened, fail to hold in observationally interesting parts of parameter space. One of the assumptions commonly made

The accreting collapsed object GRO J1655-40 could contain the gravitomagnetic monopole (GMM), and it was shown to be better described by the Kerr-Taub-NUT (KTN) spacetime instead of the Kerr spacetime. The warped accretion disk has also been observed for the same collapsed object. Motivated by these, we study a tilted thin inner accretion disk around a KTN black hole. Such a tilting could have a significant

Current cosmological observations allow for deviations from the standard growth of large-scale structures in the universe. These deviations could indicate modifications to General Relativity on cosmological scales or suggest the dynamical nature of dark energy. It is important to characterize these departures in a model-independent manner to understand their significance objectively and explore their

In metric f(R) gravity minimally coupled to the Standard Model, the scalaron field can act as a dark-matter candidate if its mass lies in the range meV ≲ m ≲ MeV. The evolution of the scalaron is influenced by the trace of the stress-energy tensor, whose behaviour, as shown in our previous work, becomes non-adiabatic during the electroweak crossover, potentially triggering scalaron oscillations. While

Upcoming large-scale structure surveys will be able to measure new features in the galaxy two point correlation function. Relativistic effects appear on large scales as subtle corrections to redshift-space distortions, showing up as a dipole and octupole when cross-correlating two different tracers of dark matter. The dipole and octupole are very sensitive to the evolution and magnification biases

A wide variety of celestial bodies have been considered as dark matter detectors. Which stands the best chance of delivering the discovery of dark matter? Which is the most powerful dark matter detector? We investigate a range of objects, including the Sun, Earth, Jupiter, Brown Dwarfs, White Dwarfs, Neutron Stars, Stellar populations, and Exoplanets. We quantify how different objects are optimal dark

We generalise the SuperEasy linear response method, originally developed to describe massive neutrinos in cosmological N-body simulations, to any subdominant hot dark matter (HDM) species with arbitrary momentum distributions. The method uses analytical solutions of the HDM phase space perturbations in various limits and constructs from them a modification factor to the gravitational potential that

We consider a length preserving biconnection gravitational theory, inspired by information geometry, which extends general relativity, by using the mutual curvature as the fundamental object describing gravity. The two connections used to build up the theory are the Schrödinger connection, and its dual. In our geometric approach it can be seen that the dual of a non-metric Schrödinger connection possesses

We study the reheating and non-thermal leptogenesis in the case of a vector inflaton. We concentrate on particle production during the phase of oscillating background, especially gravitational production induced by the presence of non-minimal coupling imposed by an isotropic and homogeneous Universe. Including processes involving the exchange of graviton, we then extend our study to decay into fermions

Large angular scale surveys in the absence of atmosphere are essential for measuring the primordial B-mode power spectrum of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). Since this proposed measurement is about three to four orders of magnitude fainter than the temperature anisotropies of the CMB, in-flight calibration of the instruments and active suppression of systematic effects are crucial. We investigate

With the release of Gaia DR3, we extend the comparison between dynamical models for the Milky Way rotation curve initiated in the previous work. Utilising astrometric and spectro-photometric data for 719143 young disc stars within |z| < 1 kpc and up to R ≃ 19 kpc, we investigate the accuracy of MOND and ΛCDM frameworks in addition to previously studied models, such as the classical one with a Navarro-Frenk-White

The wealth of high-quality observational data from the epoch of reionization that will become available in the next decade motivates further development of modeling techniques for their interpretation. Among the key challenges in modeling reionization are (1) its multi-scale nature, (2) the computational demands of solving the radiative transfer (RT) equation, and (3) the large size of reionization's

We assess the capabilities of the LiteBIRD mission to map the hot gas distribution in the Universe through the thermal Sunyaev-Zeldovich (SZ) effect. Our analysis relies on comprehensive simulations incorporating various sources of Galactic and extragalactic foreground emission, while accounting for the specific instrumental characteristics of the LiteBIRDmission, such as detector sensitivities, frequency-dependent

We propose using fuzzy axion dark matter to test the anthropic principle. A very light axion can be directly detectable, at least by black hole superradiance effects. The idea then is that gravitational and astrophysical observations can discover a light axion in the regime where it must be all of dark matter with abundance which must be set up by the anthropic principle, due to excessive primordial

Multiple fields can become dynamical during the inflationary epoch. We consider an example where a light field acquires isocurvature fluctuations during inflation and contributes to the dark matter abundance at late times. Interactions between the light field and the adiabatic sector contribute to mixed adiabatic-isocurvature non-Gaussianity (NG). We show the resulting form of NG has a different kinematic

We investigate possible manifolds characterizing traversable wormholes in the presence of a scalar field minimally coupled to gravity, which has both kinetic and potential energy. The feature of traversability requires the violation of the null energy condition, which, in turn, signals the existence of exotic matter with negative energy density. To achieve this, we introduce a hypothetical Casimir

The recent DESI 2024 Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAO) measurements combined with the CMB data from the Planck 18 PR3 dataset and the Planck PR4+ACT DR6 lensing data, with a prior on the sum of the neutrino masses ∑ mν > 0, leads to a strong constraint, ∑ mν < 0.072 eV, which would exclude the inverted neutrino hierarchy and put some tension on even the standard hierarchy. We show that actually this

We investigate the first and second order cosmological perturbation equations in f(R) modified gravity theory and provide the equation of motion of second order scalar induced gravitational waves. We find that the effects of modified gravity not only change the form of the equation of motion of second order scalar induced gravitational waves but also contribute an additional anisotropic stress tensor

We present a high-significance cross-correlation of CMB lensing maps from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) Data Release 6 (DR6) with luminous red galaxies (LRGs) from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) Legacy Survey spectroscopically calibrated by DESI. We detect this cross-correlation at a significance of 38σ; combining our measurement with the Planck Public Release 4 (PR4) lensing

High-Frequency Gravitational Waves (HFGWs) constitute a unique window on the early Universe as well as exotic astrophysical objects. While the current gravitational wave experiments are more dedicated to the low frequency regime, the graviton conversion into photons in a strong magnetic field constitutes a powerful tool to probe HFGWs. In this paper, we show that neutron stars, due to their extreme

As a promising dark matter candidate, primordial black holes (PBHs) lighter than ∼ 10-18M⊙ are supposed to have evaporated by today through Hawking radiation. This scenario is challenged by the memory burden effect, which suggests that the evaporation of black holes may slow down significantly after they have emitted about half of their initial mass. We explore the astrophysical implications of the

The latest results on baryon acoustic oscillations from DESI (Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument), when combined with cosmic microwave background and supernova data, show indications of a deviation from a cosmological constant in favour of evolving dark energy. Use of a pivot scale for the equation of state w shows that this evidence is concentrated in the derivative of w rather than its mean offset

Axion-inflation models are a compelling candidate as a mechanism behind the accelerated expansion in the early universe in light of the possibility to embed them in higher dimensional UV complete theories and the exciting prospect of testing them with next-generation cosmological probes. Adding an Abelian gauge sector to axion-inflation models makes for a rich, interesting, phenomenology spanning from

Recent advances in numerical simulations of magnetically arrested accretion onto supermassive black holes have shed light on the formation and dynamics of magnetospheric current sheets near the black hole horizon. By considering the pair magnetization σe in the upstream region and the mass accretion rate ṁ (in units of the Eddington mass accretion rate) as free parameters we estimate the strength of

We conduct a first comprehensive study of the Luminosity Function (LF) using a non-parametric approach. We use Gaussian Process to fit available luminosity data between redshifts z ∼ 2-8. Our free-form LF in the non-parametric approach rules out the conventional Schechter function model to describe the abundance-magnitude relation at redshifts z=3 and 4. Hints of deviation from the Schechter function

After primordial inflation, the universe may have experienced a prolonged reheating epoch, potentially leading to a phase of matter domination supported by the oscillating inflaton field. During such an epoch, perturbations in the inflaton virialize upon reentering the cosmological horizon, forming inflaton structures. If the primordial overdensities are sufficiently large, these structures collapse

The presence of magnetic fields in the early universe affects the cosmological processes, leading to the distinct signature, which allows constraining their properties and the genesis mechanisms. In this study, we revisit the method to constrain the amplitude of the magnetic fields on small scales in the radiation-dominated era from the abundance of primordial black holes. Constraints in the previous

The dark sirens method combines gravitational waves and catalogs of galaxies to constrain the cosmological expansion history, merger rates and mass distributions of compact objects, and the laws of gravity. However, the incompleteness of galaxy catalogs means faint potential host galaxies are unobserved, and must be modeled to avoid inducing a bias. The majority of dark sirens analyses to date assume

The pulsational mode of gravitational collapse (PMGC) originating from the combined gravito-electrostatic interaction in complex dust molecular clouds (DMCs) is a canonical mechanism leading to the onset of astronomical structure formation dynamics. A generalized semi-analytic model is formulated to explore the effects of the Eddington-inspired Born-Infeld (EiBI) gravity, non-thermal (r,q)-distributed

The natural inflation model with a periodic cosine potential is ruled out by recent Planck 2018 data for the decay constant f ≲ 5.5 MPl. If the Planck data is combined with the BICEP Keck array and BAO data, the model is excluded (at 2-σ) for all values of f. In this context, we revisit the model when the pseudoscalar inflation ϕ is coupled with a gauge field via a coupling of the form α/fϕFF̃, where

In a recent paper, the NANOGrav collaboration studied new physics explanations of the observed pulsar timing residuals consistent with a stochastic gravitational wave background (SGWB) [1], including cosmic strings in the Nambu-Goto (NG) approximation. Analysing one of current models for the loop distribution, it was found that the cosmic string model is disfavored compared to other sources, for example

General theory of relativity is non-linear in nature and therefore can result in hysteresis-like effects and cause systems to remember the footprint of the gravitational field. Here we have investigated this effect using the Kinetic theory in curved spacetime. It is shown that the entropy rate experiences this hysteresis behavior. The effect is then considered for some special spacetimes, including

We present a model independent analysis of the Pantheon+ supernova sample and study the dependence of the recovered values of H0, q0 and j0 on the redshift cut and on the modeling of peculiar velocities. In addition to the bulk velocity discussed previously, we also find a significant infall that we attribute to the presence of an overdensity out to a radius of R ≃ 120h-1Mpc.

This investigation delves into the ringdown signals produced by semiclassical stars, which are ultra-compact, regular solutions of the Einstein equations incorporating stress-energy contributions from quantum vacuum polarization. These stars exhibit an approximately Schwarzschild exterior and an interior composed of a constant-density classical fluid and a cloud of vacuum polarization. By adjusting

Primordial black holes (PBHs) could compose the dark matter content of the Universe. We present the first simulations of cosmological structure formation with PBH dark matter that consistently include collisional few-body effects, post-Newtonian orbit corrections, orbital decay due to gravitational wave emission, and black-hole mergers. We carefully construct initial conditions by considering the evolution

Investigating the thermal inflationary model, we introduce stochastic effects, incorporating a cutoff parameter σ which distinguishes between quantum and classical modes. Testing the model against Planck 2018 data, we observe a preference for a non-zero σ at least at 68% C.L., suggesting the classicalization of most modes and providing a theoretical foundation for the quantum to classical transition

We estimate the probability distribution for the spins of the primordial black holes (PBHs) that formed during an early matter-dominated era in the Universe. We employ the Zel'dovich approximation and focus on the linear-order effect of cosmological perturbations which causes the tidal torque. Assuming that the fluctuations obey Gaussian statistics, we apply the peak theory of random Gaussian variables

Ultra-slow-roll (USR) inflation predicts an exponential amplification of scalar perturbations at small scales, which leads to a stochastic gravitational wave background (SGWB) through the coupling of the scalar and tensor modes at the second-order expansion of the Einstein equation. In this work, we search for such a scalar-induced SGWB from the NANOGrav 15-year (NG15) dataset, and find that the SGWB

This study is devoted to dilaton generation during the propagation of magnetic dipole waves from a pulsar in the galactic magnetic field. Dilaton generation occurs at cosmological scales on the order of the coherence lengths of the galactic magnetic field L coh, approximately 100 pc. The exact solutions of the dilaton field equation in a vacuum and in the interstellar medium with reflective index n