James Creswell, Pavel Naselsky

The largest anisotropy in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) is the 3 mK kinematic dipole reflecting our motion with respect to the CMB frame and pointed in the direction $(l, b) = (264^\circ, +48^\circ)$ in Galactic coordinates. We introduce the concept of the ring of attraction (RA), which is orthogonal to the axis of the kinematic dipole. These directions overlap with the zone of percolation for the kinematic dipole, where its amplitude almost vanishes. We show that along this ring are oriented the directions of the dipole modulation of the CMB, and positions of the peaks responsible for generation of parity asymmetry. This coincidence is peculiar at around the 3 sigma level. We analyzed the "interaction" of low multipoles of the CMB with RA and showed that for odd modes there is a sequence of peaks in the RA direction. These peaks correlate with each other for different multipoles and result in mutual amplification of the odd $\ell$ signal for the first 30 multipoles. Our method sheds new light on the nature of parity asymmetry. It consists of the deficit of symmetrically located and equal in amplitude peaks in the CMB map in comparison with asymmetric peaks.

Gert Hütsi, Tomi Koivisto, Martti Raidal, Ville Vaskonen, Hardi Veermäe

We show that the physical conditions which induce the Thakurta metric, recently studied by Boehm et al. in the context of time-dependent black hole masses, correspond to a single accreting black hole in the entire Universe filled with isotropic non-interacting dust. In such a case, the physics of black hole accretion is not local but tied to the properties of the entire Universe. Any density fluctuation or interaction would destroy such a picture. We do not know any realistic physical example where such conditions can be realized. In particular, this solution does not apply to black hole binaries. As cosmological black holes and their mass growth via accretion are not described by the Thakurta metric, constraints on the primordial black hole abundance from the LIGO-Virgo and the CMB measurements remain valid.

Ziyong Wu, Zhenyu Zhang, Shuyang Pan, Haitao Miao, Xin Wang, Cristiano G. Sabiu, Jaime Forero-Romero, Yang Wang, Xiao-Dong Li

We develop a deep learning technique to infer the non-linear velocity field from the dark matter density field. The deep learning architecture we use is an "U-net" style convolutional neural network, which consists of 15 convolution layers and 2 deconvolution layers. This setup maps the 3-dimensional density field of $32^3$-voxels to the 3-dimensional velocity or momentum fields of $20^3$-voxels. Through the analysis of the dark matter simulation with a resolution of $2 {h^{-1}}{\rm Mpc}$, we find that the network can predict the the non-linearity, complexity and vorticity of the velocity and momentum fields, as well as the power spectra of their value, divergence and vorticity and its prediction accuracy reaches the range of $k\simeq1.4$ $h{\rm Mpc}^{-1}$ with a relative error ranging from 1% to $\lesssim$10%. A simple comparison shows that neural networks may have an overwhelming advantage over perturbation theory in the reconstruction of velocity or momentum fields.

Avery J. Tishue, Robert R. Caldwell

We show that relic vector fields can significantly impact a spectrum of primordial gravitational waves in the post-inflationary era. We consider a triplet of U(1) fields in a homogeneous, isotropic configuration. The interaction between the gravitational waves and the vector fields, from the end of reheating to the present day, yields novel spectral features. The amplitude, tilt, shape, and net chirality of the gravitational wave spectrum are shown to depend on the abundance of the electric- and magnetic-like vector fields. Our results show that even a modest abundance can have strong implications for efforts to detect the imprint of gravitational waves on the cosmic microwave background polarization. We find that a vector field comprising less than two percent of the energy density during the radiation dominated era can have a greater than order unity effect on the predicted inflationary gravitational wave spectrum.

Gia Dvali

The cosmological constant puzzle, traditionally viewed as a naturalness problem, is evidently nullified by the $S$-matrix formulation of quantum gravity/string theory. We point out an implication of this fact for another naturalness puzzle, the Hierarchy Problem between the weak and Planck scales. By eliminating the landscape of de Sitter vacua and eternal inflation, the $S$-matrix formulation exhibits an obvious tension with the explanations based on anthropic selection or cosmological relaxation of the Higgs mass. This sharpens the Hierarchy Problem in a profound way. On one hand, it strengthens the case for explanations based on new physics not far from the weak scale. At the same time, it opens up a question, whether instead the hierarchy is imposed by the $S$-matrix consistency between the Standard Model and gravity.

Philip D. Mannheim

Since particles obey wave equations, in general one is not free to postulate that particles move on the geodesics associated with test particles. Rather, for this to be the case one has to be able to derive such behavior starting from the equations of motion that the particles obey, and to do this for either massless or massive particles one can employ the eikonal approximation. While for massive particles one does obtain standard geodesic behavior this way, for a conformally coupled massless scalar field the eikonal approximation only leads to geodesic behavior if the Ricci scalar is zero. Similarly, for the propagation of the light waves associated with the conformal invariant Maxwell equations geodesic behavior only holds if the Ricci tensor is zero. While for practical purposes such terms might only be of relevance in regions of high curvature, the point of this paper is only to establish their presence in principle. Thus in principle the standard null-geodesic-based gravitational bending formula and the behavior of light rays in cosmology are in need of modification in regions with high enough curvature. We show how to appropriately modify the geodesic equations in such situations. We show that relativistic eikonalization has an intrinsic light-front structure, and show that eikonalization in a theory with local conformal symmetry leads to trajectories that are only globally conformally symmetric. The modifications to geodesics that we find lead to the propagation of massless particles off the light cone. This is a curved space reflection of the fact that when light travels through a refractive medium in flat spacetime its velocity is modified from its free flat spacetime value. In the presence of gravity spacetime itself acts as a medium, and this medium can then take light waves off the light cone.

Gian F. Giudice, Matthew McCullough, Tevong You

We describe a new phenomenon in quantum cosmology: self-organised localisation. When the fundamental parameters of a theory are functions of a scalar field subject to large fluctuations during inflation, quantum phase transitions can act as dynamical attractors. As a result, the theory parameters are probabilistically localised around the critical value and the Universe finds itself at the edge of a phase transition. We illustrate how self-organised localisation could account for the observed near-criticality of the Higgs self-coupling, the naturalness of the Higgs mass, or the smallness of the cosmological constant.

Ariel Zhitnitsky

We review a testable, the axion quark nugget (AQN) model outside of the standard WIMP paradigm. The model was originally invented to explain the observed similarity between the dark and the visible components, $\Omega_{\rm DM}\approx \Omega_{\rm visible}$ in a natural way as both types of matter are formed during the same QCD transition and proportional to the same dimensional fundamental parameter of the system, $\Lambda_{\rm QCD}$. In this framework the baryogenesis is actually a charge segregation (rather than charge generation) process which is operational due to the $\cal{CP}$-odd axion field,while the global baryon number of the Universe remains zero. The nuggets and anti-nuggets are strongly interacting but macroscopically large objects with approximately nuclear density. We overview several specific recent applications of this framework. First, we discuss the "solar corona mystery" when the so-called nanoflares are identified with the AQN annihilation events in corona. Secondly, we review a proposal that the recently observed by the Telescope Array puzzling events is a result of the annihilation events of the AQNs under thunderstorm. Finally, we overview a broadband strategy which could lead to the discovery the AQN-induced axions representing the heart of the construction.