Marco Raveri

We use a complete and rigorous statistical indicator to measure the level of concordance between cosmological data sets, without relying on the inspection of the marginal posterior distribution of some selected parameters. We apply this test to state of the art cosmological data sets, to assess their agreement within the $\Lambda$CDM model. We find that there is a good level of concordance between all the experiments with one noticeable exception. There is substantial evidence of tension between the CMB, temperature and polarization, measurements of the Planck satellite and the data from the CFHTLenS weak lensing survey even when applying ultra conservative cuts. These results robustly point toward the possibility of having unaccounted systematic effects in the data, an incomplete modelling of the cosmological predictions or hints toward new physical phenomena.

Jihn E. Kim, David J. E. Marsh

Using a fundamental discrete symmetry, ${\bf Z}_N$, we construct a two-axion model with the QCD axion solving the strong-$CP$ problem, and an ultralight axion (ULA) with $m_{\rm ULA}\approx 10^{-22}\text{ eV}$ providing the dominant form of dark matter (DM). The ULA is light enough to be detectable in cosmology from its imprints on structure formation, and may resolve the small-scale problems of cold DM. The necessary relative DM abundances occur without fine tuning in constructions with decay constants $f_{\rm ULA}\sim 10^{17}\text{ GeV}$, and $f_{\rm QCD}\sim 10^{11}\text{ GeV}$. An example model achieving this has $N=27$, and a range $11<N<64$ also produces acceptable models. We compute the ULA couplings to the SM, and discuss prospects for direct detection. The QCD axion may be detectable in standard experiments through the $\vec{E}\cdot\vec{B}$ and $G\tilde{G}$ couplings. In the simplest models, however, the ULA has identically zero coupling to both $G\tilde{G}$ of QCD and $\vec{E}\cdot\vec{B}$ of electromagnetism due to vanishing electromagnetic and color anomalies. The ULA couples to fermions with strength $g\propto 1/f_{\rm ULA}$. This coupling causes spin precession of nucleons and electrons with respect to the DM wind with period $t\sim$months. Current limits do not exclude the predicted coupling strength, and our model is within reach of the CASPEr-Wind experiment, using nuclear magnetic resonance.

Sébastien Renaux-Petel, Krzysztof Turzyński

We show the existence of a general mechanism by which heavy scalar fields can be destabilized during inflation. It relies on the fact that the effective mass of fluctuations orthogonal to the inflationary direction contains a contribution proportional to the curvature tensor of the field space metric, and that it can render the entropic fluctuations tachyonic. We describe a simple and rather universal setup in which apparently benign higher-order operators trigger this instability. This phenomenon can prematurely end inflation and have important observational consequences, sometimes excluding models that would otherwise perfectly fit the data. More generally, it modifies the interpretation of cosmological constraints in terms of fundamental physics.

Benjamin E. Niehoff, Jorge E. Santos, Benson Way

Numerical evidence suggests that the superradiant instability of Kerr-AdS black holes and "black resonators" evolves to smaller and smaller scales towards a "limiting" black resonator. Using $AdS_4$ supergravity, we argue that this putative endpoint to the superradiant instability does not exist.

Jonathan Miller, Roman Pasechnik

In the framework of quantum field theory, a graviton interacts locally with a quantum state having definite mass, i.e. the gravitational mass eigenstate, while a weak boson interacts with a state having definite flavor, i.e. the flavor eigenstate. An interaction of a neutrino with an energetic graviton may trigger the collapse of the neutrino to a definite mass eigenstate with probability expressed in terms of PMNS mixing matrix elements. Thus, gravitons would induce quantum decoherence of a coherent neutrino flavor state similarly to how weak bosons induce quantum decoherence of a neutrino in a definite mass state. We demonstrate that such an essentially quantum gravity effect may have strong consequences for neutrino oscillation phenomena in astrophysics due to relatively large scattering cross sections of relativistic neutrinos undergoing large-angle radiation of energetic gravitons in gravitational field of a classical massive source (i.e. the quasi-classical case of gravitational Bethe-Heitler scattering). This graviton-induced {\it decoherence} is compared to {\it decoherence} due to propagation in the presence of the Earth matter effect. Based on this study, we propose a new technique for the indirect detection of energetic gravitons by measuring the flavor composition of astrophysical neutrinos.

Arnau Pujol, Kai Hoffmann, Noelia Jiménez, Enrique Gaztañaga

We study the large scale halo bias b as a function of the environment (defined here as the background dark matter density fluctuation, d) and show that environment, and not halo mass m, is the main cause of large scale clustering. More massive haloes have a higher clustering because they live in denser regions, while low mass haloes can be found in a wide range of environments, and hence they have a lower clustering. Using a Halo Occupation Distribution (HOD) test, we can predict b(m) from b(d), but we cannot predict b(d) from b(m), which shows that environment is more fundamental for bias than mass. This has implications for the HOD model interpretation of the galaxy clustering, since when a galaxy selection is affected by environment, the standard HOD implementation fails. We show that the effects of environment are very important for colour selected samples in semi-analytic models of galaxy formation. In these cases, bias can be better recovered if we use environmental density instead of mass as the HOD variable. This can be readily applied to observations as the background density of galaxies is shown to be a very good proxy of environment.

David Andriot

We study the embedding of the monodromy inflation mechanism by E. Silverstein and A. Westphal (2008) in a concrete compactification setting. To that end, we look for an appropriate vacuum of type IIA supergravity, corresponding to the minimum of the inflaton potential. We prove a no-go theorem on the existence of such a vacuum, using ten-dimensional equations of motion. Anti-de Sitter and Minkowski vacua are ruled out; de Sitter vacua are not excluded, but have a lower bound on their cosmological constant which is too high for phenomenology.

Yasaman Farzan, Steen Hannestad

Within the framework of the Standard Model of particle physics and standard cosmology, observations of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) and Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAO) set stringent bounds on the sum of the masses of neutrinos. If these bounds are satisfied, the upcoming KATRIN experiment which is designed to probe neutrino mass down to $\sim 0.2$ eV will observe only a null signal. We show that the bounds can be relaxed by introducing new interactions for the massive active neutrinos, making neutrino masses in the range observable by KATRIN compatible with cosmological bounds. Within this scenario, neutrinos convert to new stable light particles by resonant production of intermediate states around a temperature of $T\sim$ keV in the early Universe, leading to a much less pronounced suppression of density fluctuations compared to the standard model.

V.K. Onemli

We, in the first part, contemplate a massless minimally coupled scalar which is Yukawa-coupled to a massless Dirac fermion in a locally de Sitter background of an inflating spacetime. We compute the scalar's quantum corrected mode function, power spectrum, spectral index and the running of the spectral index at one-loop order. We find that the spectrum is slightly blue-tilted; hence, the amplitudes of fluctuations grow slightly toward the smaller scales. Then, in the second part, we apply the computation method used in the first part to a massless minimally coupled scalar with a quartic self-interaction in the same background and obtain exact analytic expressions for the associated quantities at one-loop order. In contrast to the Yukawa scalar, the spectrum in this case is slightly red-tilted; hence, the amplitudes of fluctuations grow slightly toward the larger scales.

G. Fanizza, L. Tedesco

We investigate the electrodynamic in a Bianchi type I cosmological model. This scenario reveals the possibility that photons, during their traveling, can make quantum interference. This effect is only due to the presence of two different axes of expansion in the cosmic evolution. In other word, it is possible to conclude that a purely metrical - or, equivalently, gravitational - phenomenon gives rise up to a quantum effect that manifests itself in the light propagation.

Pavan K. Aluri, Nidhi Pant, Aditya Rotti, Tarun Souradeep

Any isotropy violating phenomena on cosmic microwave background (CMB) induces off-diagonal correlations in the two-point function. These correlations themselves can be used to estimate the underlying anisotropic signals. Masking due to residual foregrounds, or availability of partial sky due to survey limitation, are unavoidable circumstances in CMB studies. But, masking induces additional correlations, and thus complicates the recovery of such signals. In this work, we discuss a procedure based on bipolar spherical harmonic (BipoSH) formalism to comprehensively addresses any spurious correlations induced by masking and successfully recover hidden signals of anisotropy in observed CMB maps. This method is generic, and can be applied to recover a variety of isotropy violating phenomena. Here, we illustrate the procedure by recovering the subtle Doppler boost signal from simulated boosted CMB skies, which has become possible with the unprecedented full-sky sensitivity of PLANCK probe.

K. Lawson, A.R. Zhitnitsky

It has been recently claimed that radio observations of nearby spiral galaxies essentially rule out a dark matter source for the galactic haze. Here we consider the low energy thermal emission from a quark nugget dark matter model in the context of microwave emission from the galactic centre and radio observations of nearby Milky Way like galaxies. We demonstrate that observed emission levels do not strongly constrain this specific dark matter candidate across a broad range of the allowed parameter space in drastic contrast with conventional dark matter models based on the WIMP paradigm.

A. Aguilar-Arevalo, D. Amidei, X. Bertou, D. Bole, M. Butner, G. Cancelo, A. Castañeda Vázquez, A. E. Chavarria, J. R. T. de Mello Neto, S. Dixon, J. C. D'Olivo, J. Estrada, G. Fernandez Moroni, K. P. Hernández Torres, F. Izraelevitch, A. Kavner, B. Kilminster, I. Lawson, J. Liao, M. López, J. Molina, G. Moreno-Granados, J. Pena, P. Privitera, Y. Sarkis, V. Scarpine, T. Schwarz, M. Sofo Haro, J. Tiffenberg, D. Torres Machado, F. Trillaud, X. You, J. Zhou

The DAMIC (Dark Matter in CCDs) experiment uses high resistivity, scientific grade CCDs to search for dark matter. The CCD's low electronic noise allows an unprecedently low energy threshold of a few tens of eV that make it possible to detect silicon recoils resulting from interactions of low mass WIMPs. In addition the CCD's high spatial resolution and the excellent energy response results in very effective background identification techniques. The experiment has a unique sensitivity to dark matter particles with masses below 10 GeV/c$^2$. Previous results have demonstrated the potential of this technology, motivating the construction of DAMIC100, a 100 grams silicon target detector currently being installed at SNOLAB. In this contribution, the mode of operation and unique imaging capabilities of the CCDs, and how they may be exploited to characterize and suppress backgrounds will be discussed, as well as physics results after one year of data taking.

H. Dieter Zeh

Remarks regarding a novel decoherence mechanism [arXiv:1311.1095].

Pietro Baratella, Paolo Creminelli, Marco Serone, Gabriele Trevisan

We study how the coupling with gravity of theories with non-linearly realized space-time symmetries is modified when one changes the parametrization of the coset. As an example, we focus on the so-called Galileon duality: a reparametrization which maps a Galilean invariant action into another one which enjoys the same symmetry. Starting with a standard coupling with gravity, with a parametric separation between the Planck scale and the typical scale of the coset, one ends up with a theory without such a separation. In particular an infinite set of higher-dimension operators are relevant when the superluminality of the Galileon is measurable in the effective theory. This addresses an apparent paradox since superluminality arises in the dual theory even when absent in the original one.