Wen Zhao, Larissa Santos

The foundation of modern cosmology relies on the so-called cosmological principle which states an homogeneous and isotropic distribution of matter in the universe on large scales. However, recent observations, such as the temperature anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation, the motion of galaxies in the universe, the polarization of quasars and the acceleration of the cosmic expansion, indicate preferred directions in the sky. If these directions have a cosmological origin, the cosmological principle would be violated, and modern cosmology should be reconsidered. In this paper, by considering the preferred axis in the CMB parity violation, we find that it coincides with the preferred axes in CMB quadrupole and CMB octopole, and they all align with the direction of the CMB kinematic dipole. In addition, the preferred directions in the velocity flows, quasar alignment, anisotropy of the cosmic acceleration, the handedness of spiral galaxies, and the angular distribution of the fine-structure constant are also claimed to be aligned with the CMB kinematic dipole. Since CMB dipole was confirmed to be caused by the motion of our local group of galaxies relative to the reference frame of the CMB, the coincidence of all these preferred directions hints that these anomalies have a common origin, which is not cosmological or due to a gravitational effect. The systematical or contaminative errors in observation or in data analysis, which can be directly related to the motion of our local group of galaxies, can play an important role in explaining the anomalies. Help us improve arXiv so we can better serve you. Take our user survey.

Jarah Evslin

A 2.5-3 sigma discrepancy has been reported between the baryonic acoustic oscillation peak (BAO) in the Lyman alpha forest at z=2.34 and the best fit Planck LCDM cosmology. To isolate the origin of the tension, we consider unanchored BAO, in which the standard BAO ruler is not calibrated, eliminating any dependence on cosmology before redshift z=2.34. We consider BOSS BAO measurements at z=0.32, 0.57 and 2.34, using the full 2-dimensional constraints on the best and worst determined combinations of the angular and line of sight BAO scale, as well as isotropic BAO measurements by 6dF and SDSS at z=0.106 and z=0.15. We find that the z>0.43 data alone is in 2.8 sigma of tension with LCDM with or without the Planck best fit values of the mass fraction and the BAO scale, indicating that the tension arises not from the LCDM parameters but from the dark energy evolution itself at 0.57<z<2.34. Including the low z BAO data, which is itself consistent with LCDM, reduces the tension to just over 2 sigma, however in this case a CPL parametrization of the dark energy evolution yields only a modest improvement.

Geoffrey A. Landis

The gravitational field of the sun will focus light from a distant source to a focal point at a minimal distance of 500 Astronomical Units from the sun. A proposed mission to this gravitational focus could use the sun as a very large lens, allowing (in principle) a large amplification of signal from the target, and a very high magnification. This article discusses some of the difficulties involved in using the sun as such a gravitational telescope for a candidate mission, that of imaging the surface of a previously-detected exoplanet. These difficulties include the pointing and focal length, and associated high magnification; the signal to noise ratio associated with the solar corona, and the focal blur. In addition, a method to calculate the signal gain and magnification is derived using the first-order deflection calculation and classical optics, showing that the gain is finite for an on-axis source of non-zero area.

Julian Adamek, David Daverio, Ruth Durrer, Martin Kunz

We present a new N-body code, gevolution, for the evolution of large scale structure in the Universe. Our code is based on a weak field expansion of General Relativity and calculates all six metric degrees of freedom in Poisson gauge. N-body particles are evolved by solving the geodesic equation which we write in terms of a canonical momentum such that it remains valid also for relativistic particles. We validate the code by considering the Schwarzschild solution and, in the Newtonian limit, by comparing with the Newtonian N-body code Gadget-2. We then proceed with a simulation of large scale structure in a Universe with massive neutrinos where we study the gravitational slip induced by the neutrino shear stress. The code can be extended to include different kinds of dark energy or modified gravity models and going beyond the usually adopted quasi-static approximation. Our code is publicly available.

Cong Ma, Observatoire de Paris-Meudon), Pier-Stefano Corasaniti, Observatoire de Paris-Meudon)

We use cosmological luminosity distance ($d_L$) from the JLA Type Ia supernovae compilation and angular-diameter distance ($d_A$) based on BOSS and WiggleZ baryon acoustic oscillation measurements to test the distance-duality relation $\eta \equiv d_L / [ (1 + z)^2 d_A ] = 1$. The $d_L$ measurements are matched to $d_A$ redshift by a statistically-motivated compression procedure. By means of Monte Carlo methods, non-trivial and correlated distributions of $\eta$ can be explored in a straightforward manner without resorting to a particular evolution template $\eta(z)$. Assuming Planck cosmological parameter uncertainty, we find 5% constraints in favor of $\eta = 1$, consistent with the weaker 7--10% constraints obtained using WiggleZ data. These results stand in contrast to previous claims that $\eta < 1$ has been found close to or above $1\sigma$ level.

Yong Tang, Yue-Liang Wu

In this study, we investigate a scenario that dark matter (DM) has only gravitational interaction. In the framework of effective field theory of gravity, we find that DM is still stable at tree level even if there is no symmetry to protect its longevity, but could decay into standard model particles due to gravitational loop corrections. The radiative corrections can lead to both higher- and lower-dimensional effective operators. We also first explore how DM can be produced in the early universe. Through gravitational interaction at high temperature, DM is then found to have mass around TeV $\lesssim m_X \lesssim 10^{11}$GeV to get the right relic abundance. When DM decays, it mostly decays into gravitons, which could be tested by current and future CMB experiments. We also estimate the resulting fluxes for cosmic rays, gamma-ray and neutrino.

James Hartle, Thomas Hertog

We apply the principles of quantum mechanics and quantum cosmology to predict probabilities for our local observations of a universe undergoing false vacuum eternal inflation. At a sufficiently fine-grained level, histories of the universe describe a mosaic of bubble universes separated by inflationary regions. We show that predictions for local observations can be obtained directly from sets of much coarser grained histories which only follow a single bubble. These coarse-grained histories contain neither information about our unobservable location nor about the unobservable large-scale structure outside our own bubble. Applied to a landscape of false vacua in the no-boundary state we predict our local universe emerged from the dominant decay channel of the lowest energy false vacuum. We compare and contrast this framework for prediction based on quantum cosmology with traditional approaches to the measure problem in cosmology.

Michael Duerr, Pavel Fileviez Perez, Juri Smirnov

Recently, the ATLAS and CMS collaborations have pointed out the possible existence of a new resonance with a mass around 750 GeV. We investigate the possibility to identify this new resonance with a spin zero field responsible for the breaking of a new gauge symmetry. We focus on a simple theory where the baryon number is a local symmetry spontaneously broken at the low scale. In this context new vector-like quarks are needed to cancel all baryonic anomalies and define the production mechanism and decays of the new Higgs at the LHC. Assuming the existence of the new Higgs with a mass of 750 GeV at the LHC we find an upper bound on the symmetry breaking scale. Therefore, one expects that a new force associated with baryon number could be discovered at the LHC. Help us improve arXiv so we can better serve you. Take our user survey.

P. Naselsky, A. D. Jackson, Hao Liu

We present a simplified method for the extraction of meaningful signals from Hanford and Livingstone 32 seconds data for the GW150914 event made publicly available by the LIGO collaboration and demonstrate its ability to reproduce the LIGO collaboration's own results quantitatively given the assumption that all narrow peaks in the power spectrum are a consequence of physically uninteresting signals and can be removed. After the clipping of these peaks and return to the time domain, the GW150914 event is readily distinguished from broadband background noise. This simple technique allows us to identify the GW150914 event without any assumption regarding its physical origin and with minimal assumptions regarding its shape. We also confirm that the LIGO GW150914 event is uniquely correlated in the Hanford and Livingston detectors for 4096 second data at the level of $6-7\,\sigma$ with a temporal displacement of $\tau=6.9 \pm 0.4\,$ms. We have also identified a few events that are morphologically close to GW150914 but less strongly cross correlated with it.

Anowar J. Shajib, Edward L. Wright

One of the physical features of a dark-energy-dominated universe is the integrated Sachs-Wolfe (ISW) effect on the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation, which gives us a direct observational window to detect and study dark energy. The AllWISE data release of the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) has a large number of point sources, which span over a wide redshift range including where the ISW effect is maximized. AllWISE data is thus very well-suited for the ISW effect studies. In this study, we cross-correlate AllWISE galaxy and active galactic nucleus (AGN) overdensities with the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe CMB temperature maps to detect the ISW effect signal. We calibrate the biases for galaxies and AGNs by cross-correlating the galaxy and AGN overdensities with the Planck lensing convergence map. We measure the ISW effect signal amplitudes relative to the {\Lambda}CDM expectation of $A=1$ to be $A=1.18 \pm 0.36$ for galaxies and $A=0.64 \pm 0.74$ for AGNs . The detection significances for the ISW effect signal are $3.3\sigma$ and $0.9\sigma$ for galaxies and AGNs respectively giving a combined significance of $3.4\sigma$. Our result is in agreement with the {\Lambda}CDM model.