Universe, Volume 4, Issue 2 (February 2018) – 23 articles

The properties of dense matter in quantum chromodynamics (QCD) are delineated through equations of state constrained by the neutron star observations. The two solar mass constraint, the radius constraint of ≃11–13 km, and the causality constraint on the speed of sound, are used to develop the picture of hadron–quark continuity in which hadronic matter continuously transforms into quark matter. A unified equation of state at zero temperature and β-equilibrium is constructed by a phenomenological interpolation between nuclear and quark matter equations of state. Full article

Strange stars are one of the possible compact stellar objects formed in the core collapse of supernovae. These hypothetical stars are made by deconfined quark matter and are selfbound. In our study, we focus on the torsional oscillations of a non bare strange star, i.e., a strange star with a thin crust made of standard nuclear matter. We construct a theoretical model assuming that the inner parts of the star are in two different phases, namely the color flavour locked phase and the crystalline colour superconducting phase. Since the latter phase is rigid, with a large shear modulus, it corresponds to a first stellar crust. Above this crust a second small crust made by standard nuclear matter is suspended thanks to a strong electromagnetic dipolar moment. We focus on the electromagnetically coupled oscillations of the two stellar crusts. Notably, we find that if a small fraction of the energy of a glitch event like a typical Vela glitch is conveyed in torsional oscillations, the small nuclear crust will likely break. This is due to the fact that in this model the maximum stress, due to torsional oscillations, is likely located near the star surface. Full article

The first and second observational runs of Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) have marked the first direct detections of gravitational waves, either from black hole binaries or, in one case, from coalescing neutron stars. These observations opened up the era of gravitational wave astronomy, but also of gravitational wave cosmology, in the form of an independent derivation of the Hubble constant. They were equally important to prove false a plethora of modified gravity theories predicting gravitational wave propagation speed different from that of light. For a continued and improved testing of general relativity, the precise description of compact binary dynamics, not only in the final coalescence phase but also earlier, when precessional effects dominate, are required. We report on the derivation of the full secular dynamics for compact binaries, valid over the precessional time-scale, in the form of an autonomous closed system of differential equations for the set of spin angles and periastron. The system can be applied for mapping the parameter space for the occurrence of the spin flip-flop effect and for more accurately analyzing the spin-flip effect, which could explain the formation of X-shaped radio galaxies. Full article

In this paper, we present a method to probe the vacuum decay hypothesis by searching for deviations of the uncoupled dark matter density evolution formula. The method consists of expanding the dark matter density in a Taylor series and then comparing the series coefficients obtained from the observational analysis with its uncoupled values. We use the growth rate data to put constraints on the series coefficients. The results obtained are consistent with the $\mathrm{\Lambda }$ CDM model, but it is shown that the possibility of vacuum decay cannot be ruled out by current growth rate data. Full article

The gravity model developed in the series of papers (Arbuzov et al. 2009; 2010), (Pervushin et al. 2012) is revisited. The model is based on the Ogievetsky theorem, which specifies the structure of the general coordinate transformation group. The theorem is implemented in the context of the Noether theorem with the use of the nonlinear representation technique. The canonical quantization is performed with the use of reparametrization-invariant time and Arnowitt– Deser–Misner foliation techniques. Basic quantum features of the models are discussed. Mistakes appearing in the previous papers are corrected. Full article

Simulating Many Accelerated Strongly-interacting Hadrons (SMASH) is a new hadronic transport approach designed to describe the non-equilibrium evolution of heavy-ion collisions. The production of strange particles in such systems is enhanced compared to elementary reactions (Blume and Markert 2011), providing an interesting signal to study. Two different strangeness production mechanisms are discussed: one based on resonances and another using forced canonical thermalization. Comparisons to experimental data from elementary collisions are shown. Full article

The Lense-Thirring effect from spinning neutron stars in double neutron star binaries contributes to the periastron advance of the orbit. This extra term involves the moment of inertia of the neutron stars. The moment of inertia, on the other hand, depends on the mass and spin of the neutron star, as well as the equation of state of the matter. If at least one member of the double neutron star binary (better the faster one) is a radio pulsar, then accurate timing analysis might lead to the estimation of the contribution of the Lense-Thirring effect to the periastron advance, which will lead to the measurement of the moment of inertia of the pulsar. The combination of the knowledge on the values of the moment of inertia, the mass and the spin of the pulsar will give a new constraint on the equation of state. Pulsars in double neutron star binaries are the best for this purpose as short orbits and moderately high eccentricities make the Lense-Thirring effect substantial, whereas tidal effects are negligible (unlike pulsars with main sequence or white-dwarf binaries). The most promising pulsars are PSR J0737 − 3039A and PSR J1757 − 1854. The spin-precession of pulsars due to the misalignment between the spin and the orbital angular momentum vectors affect the contribution of the Lense-Thirring effect to the periastron advance. This effect has been explored for both PSR J0737 − 3039A and PSR J1757 − 1854, and as the misalignment angles for both of these pulsars are small, the variation in the Lense-Thirring term is not much. However, to extract the Lense-Thirring effect from the observed rate of the periastron advance, more accurate timing solutions including precise proper motion and distance measurements are essential. Full article

Significant progress in the development of observational techniques gives us the hope to directly observe cosmological wormholes. We have collected basic effects produced by the scattering of radiation on wormholes, which can be used in observations. These are the additional topological damping of cosmic rays, the generation of a diffuse background around any discrete source, the generation of an interference picture, and distortion of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) spectrum. It turns out that wormholes in the leading order mimic perfectly analogous effects of the scattering of radiation on the standard matter (dust, hot electron gas, etc.). However, in higher orders, a small difference appears, which allows for disentangling effects of wormholes and ordinary matter. Full article

Conventional descriptions of higher-spin fermionic gauge fields appear in two varieties: the Aragone–Deser–Vasiliev frame-like formulation and the Fang–Fronsdal metric-like formulation. We review, clarify and elaborate on some essential features of these two. For frame-like free fermions in Anti-de Sitter space, one can present a gauge-invariant Lagrangian description such that the constraints on the field and the gauge parameters mimic their flat-space counterparts. This simplifies the explicit demonstration of the equivalence of the two formulations at the free level. We comment on the subtleties that may arise in an interacting theory. Full article

We consider diverse deformed Bose gas models (DBGMs) focusing on distributions and correlations of any order, and also on deformed thermodynamics. For so-called $\mu$ -deformed Bose gas model ( $\mu$ -DBGM), main thermodynamic aspects are treated: total number of particles, deformed partition function, etc. Using a geometric approach, we confirm the existence of critical behavior—Bose-like condensation; we find the critical temperature $T_c^{\left(\mu \right)}$ depending on $\mu$ so that $T_c^{\left(\mu \right)}>T_c^{\left(\mathrm{Bose}\right)}$ for $\mu >0$ . This fact and other advantages of $\mu$ -DBGM relative to the usual Bose gas, e.g., stronger effective inter-particle attraction (controlled by the parameter $\mu$ ), allow us to consider the condensate in $\mu$ -DBGM as a candidate for modeling dark matter. As another, quite successful application we discuss the usage of the two-parameter ( $\tilde{\mu },q$ )-deformed BGM for effective description of the peculiar (non-Bose like) behavior of two-pion correlations observed in the STAR experiment at RHIC (Brookhaven). Herein, we point out the transparent role of the two deformation parameters $\tilde{\mu }$ and q as being responsible for compositeness and (effective account of) interactions of pions, respectively. Full article

An extension of the relativistic density functional approach to the equation of state for strongly interacting matter is suggested that generalizes a recently developed modified excluded-volume mechanism to the case of temperature- and density-dependent available-volume fractions. A parametrization of this dependence is presented for which, at low temperatures and suprasaturation densities, a first-order phase transition is obtained. It changes for increasing temperatures to a crossover transition via a critical endpoint. This provides a benchmark case for studies of the role of such a point in hydrodynamic simulations of ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions. The approach is thermodynamically consistent and extendable to finite isospin asymmetries that are relevant for simulations of neutron stars, their mergers, and core-collapse supernova explosions. Full article

Investigation of femtoscopic correlation functions in relativistic heavy ion reactions is an important tool to access the space-time structure of particle production in the strongly interacting Quark Gluon Plasma (sQGP). The shape of the source, and thus the shape of the correlation functions, is often assumed to be Gaussian, but experimental results found evidence for heavy tails in the source distribution of pions. Recent analysis revealed that the statistically correct assumption could be the so-called Lévy distribution. The detailed investigation of correlation functions in various systems may shed light on the location of the critical endpoint on QCD (Quantum Chromodynamics) phase diagram. It could also reveal if there is partially coherent pion production or could indicate the possible in-medium mass modification of the ${\eta }^{\prime }$ meson due to the (partial) restoration of the $U_{\mathrm{A}}\left(1\right)$ axial symmetry. These phenomena could depend on the system size and on the collision energy. A detailed centrality-dependent analysis could explore the multiplicity dependencies of the Lévy parameters, and thus the critical and thermodynamical properties of the sQGP, and could give information about the above mentioned processes. In this paper, we present the status of the centrality dependent measurements of two-pion Lévy Bose-Einstein correlation functions $\sqrt{s_{\mathrm{NN}}}=200$ GeV Au+Au collisions at PHENIX.
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A commonly applied quark matter model in astrophysics is the thermodynamic bag model (tdBAG). The original MIT bag model approximates the effect of quark confinement, but does not explicitly account for the breaking of chiral symmetry, an important property of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD). It further ignores vector repulsion. The vector-interaction-enhanced bag model (vBag) improves the tdBAG approach by accounting for both dynamical chiral symmetry breaking and repulsive vector interactions. The latter is of particular importance to studies of dense matter in beta-equilibriumto explain the two solar mass maximum mass constraint for neutron stars. The model is motivated by analyses of QCD based Dyson-Schwinger equations (DSE), assuming a simple quark-quark contact interaction. Here, we focus on the study of hybrid neutron star properties resulting from the application of vBag and will discuss possible extensions. Full article

Exploiting a stiff equation of state of the relativistic mean-field model MKVORH $\varphi$ with $\sigma$ -scaled hadron effective masses and couplings, including hyperons, we demonstrate that the existing neutron-star cooling data can be appropriately described within “the nuclear medium cooling scenario” under the assumption that different sources have different masses. Full article

This review focuses on the demonstration of an interrelation between various in-medium effects, which are manifested in the phenomena occurring in neutron stars and heavy-ion collisions. More specifically, the equation of state of a baryon-rich cold hadron matter is considered. It is done within the relativistic mean-field approach with $\sigma$ field-scaled hadron masses and couplings, and a cut-mechanism is discussed leading to an increase of the stiffness of the dense baryon matter. Then, I discuss the role of the viscosity and thermal conductivity in description of the first-order phase transitions occurring in heavy-ion collisions and neutron stars. Next, the p-wave polarization effects on pion and kaon spectra are studied beyond the mean-field level. In particular, the pion softening effect is detailed. Then, a role of in-medium effects in neutrino radiation of neutron stars is discussed and effects of the bulk and shear viscosities in the problem of r-mode damping in young rapidly rotating pulsars are considered. Full article

We apply the Bogoliubov transformations in order to connect two different vacuums, one located at past infinity and another located at future infinity around a black hole inside the scenario of the nonlinear theory of massive gravity. The presence of the extra degrees of freedom changes the behavior of the logarithmic singularity and, as a consequence, the relation between the two Bogoliubov coefficients. This has an effect on the number of particles, or equivalently, on the black hole temperature perceived by observers defining the time arbitrarily. Full article

In this review, we focus our attention on scalar-tensor gravity models and their empirical verification in terms of black hole and wormhole physics. We focus on black holes, embedded in an expanding universe, describing both cosmological and astrophysical scales. We show that in scalar-tensor gravity it is quite common that the local geometry is isolated from the cosmological expansion, so that it does not backreact on the black hole metric. We try to extract common features of scalar-tensor black holes in an expanding universe and point out the issues that are not fully investigated. Full article

Exclusive processes provide a useful method to study a broad range of high energy physics fields from gluon density evolutions to searches for new physics. Three measurements from the Compact Muon Solenoid experiment are reviewed. Exclusive $\pi \pi$ production is studied in proton–proton collisions. Low-mass meson resonances are observed in the invariant mass distribution of pion pairs. The total exclusive ${\pi }^{+}{\pi }^{-}$ cross-section is also measured in the $p_T\left(\pi \right)>0.2$ GeV, $\left|y\right|<2$ region, yielding $26.5\pm 0.3\left(\mathrm{stat}\right)\pm 5.0\left(\mathrm{syst}\right)\pm 1.1\left(\mathrm{lumi}\right)\mu$ b. The photoproduction of $\mathrm{Y}\left(nS\right)$ mesons is observed in ultraperipheral pPb collisions. The differential cross-sections are measured as a function of $\left|t\right|$ and y. The comparison with previous measurements and theoretical models provides a better understanding of the gluon density evolution at low x values. Evidence for the $\gamma \gamma \to {\mathrm{W}}^{+}{\mathrm{W}}^{-}$ process is shown with a $3.7\sigma$ observed significance. According to the results, limits on anomalous quartic gauge couplings can be provided. Full article

We review observational aspects of the active galactic nuclei and their jets in connection with the detection of high-energy neutrinos by the Antarctic IceCube Neutrino Observatory. We propose that a reoriented jet generated by the spin-flipping supermassive black hole in a binary merger is likely the source of such high-energy neutrinos. Hence they encode important information on the afterlife of coalescing supermassive black hole binaries. As the gravitational radiation emanating from them will be monitored by the future LISA space mission, high-energy neutrino detections could be considered a contributor to multi-messenger astronomy. Full article

Space out of a topological defect of the Abrikosov–Nielsen–Olesen (ANO) vortex type is locally flat but non-Euclidean. If a spinor field is quantized in such a space, then a variety of quantum effects are induced in the vacuum. On the basis of the continuum model for long-wavelength electronic excitations originating in the tight-binding approximation for the nearest-neighbor interaction of atoms in the crystal lattice, we consider quantum ground-state effects in Dirac materials with two-dimensional monolayer structures warped into nanocones by a disclination; the nonzero size of the disclination is taken into account, and a boundary condition at the edge of the disclination is chosen to ensure self-adjointness of the Dirac–Weyl Hamiltonian operator. We show that the quantum ground-state effects are independent of the disclination size, and we find circumstances in which they are independent of parameters of the boundary condition. Full article

The non-Euclidean geometry created by Bolyai, Lobachevsky and Gauss has led to a new physical theory—general relativity. In due turn, a correct mathematical treatment of the cosmological problem in general relativity has led Friedmann to a discovery of dynamical equations for the universe. And now, after almost a century of theoretical and experimental research, cosmology has a status of the most rapidly developing fundamental science. New challenges here are problems of dark energy and dark matter. As a result, a lot of modifications of general relativity appear recently. The bigravity is one of them, constructed with a couple of interacting space–time metrics accompanied by some coupling to matter. We discuss here this approach and different kinds of the coupling. Full article

Fefferman-Graham ambient construction can be formulated as $\mathfrak{sp}(2)$ -algebra relations on three Hamiltonian constraint functions on ambient space. This formulation admits a simple extension that leads to higher-spin fields, both conformal gauge fields and usual massless fields on anti-de Sitter spacetime. For the bulk version of the system, we study its possible on-shell version which is formally consistent and reproduces conformal higher-spin fields on the boundary. Interpretation of the proposed on-shell version crucially depends on the choice of the functional class. Although the choice leading to fully interacting higher-spin theory in the bulk is not known, we demonstrate that the system has a vacuum solution describing general higher-spin flat backgrounds. Moreover, we propose a functional class such that the system describes propagation of higher-spin fields over any higher-spin flat background, reproducing all the structures that determine the known nonlinear higher-spin equations. Full article

I give a review of predictions of values of spectral parameters for a large number of inflationary models. The present review includes detailed deductions and information about the approximations that have been made, written in a style that is suitable for text book authors. The Planck data have the power of falsifying several models of inflation as shown in the present paper. Furthermore, they fix the beginning of the inflationary era to a time about 10⁻³⁶ s, and the typical energy of a particle at this point of time to 10¹⁶ GeV, only a few orders of magnitude less than the Planck energy, and at least 12 orders of magnitude larger than the most energetic particle produced by CERN’s particle accelerator, LHC. This is a phenomenological review with contents as given in the list below. It includes systematic presentations of the different types of slow roll parameters that have been in use, and also of the N-formalism. Full article