119263018
Linear growth rate of structure in parametrized post-Friedmannian universes
A possible solution to the dark energy problem is that Einstein's theory of general relativity is modified. A suite of models have been proposed that, in general, are unable to predict the correct amount of large scale structure in the distribution of galaxies or anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background. It has been argued, however, that it should be possible to constrain a general class of theories of modified gravity by focusing on properties such as the growing mode, gravitational slip, and the effective, time-varying Newton's constant. We show that assuming certain physical requirements such as stability, metricity, and gauge invariance, it is possible to come up with consistency conditions between these various parameters. In this paper we focus on theories which have, at most, second derivatives in the metric variables and find restrictions that shed light on current and future experimental constraints without having to resort to a (as yet unknown) complete theory of modified gravity. We claim that future measurements of the growth of structure on small scales (i.e. from $1\char21{}200{h}^{\ensuremath{-}1}\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{Mpc}$) may lead to tight constraints on both dark energy and modified theories of gravity.
119285987
Cosmology of Axions and Moduli: A Dynamical Systems Approach
xed point attractors, repellers and saddle points, which we analyse in detail. We also provide geometric interpretations of the phase space. The xed points can be used to bound the couplings in the model. A systematic scan of certain regions of parameter space reveals that the future evolution of the universe in this model can be rich, containing multiple epochs of accelerated expansion.
17421918
Living in a void: testing the Copernican principle with distant supernovae.
We show that the local redshift dependence of the luminosity distance can be used to test the Copernican principle that we are not in a central or otherwise special region of the Universe. Future surveys of type Ia supernovae that focus on a redshift range of approximately 0.1-0.4 will be ideally suited to observationally determine the validity of the Copernican principle on new scales, as well as probing the degree to which dark energy must be considered a necessary ingredient in the Universe.
119408227
CMB likelihood functions for beginners and experts
Although the broad outlines of the appropriate pipeline for cosmological likelihood analysis with CMB data has been known for several years, only recently have we had to contend with the full, large-scale, computationally challenging problem involving both highly-correlated noise and extremely large datasets (N>1000). In this talk we concentrate on the beginning and end of this process. First, we discuss estimating the noise covariance from the data itself in a rigorous and unbiased way; this is essentially an iterated minimum-variance mapmaking approach. We also discuss the unbiased determination of cosmological parameters from estimates of the power spectrum or experimental bandpowers.
36591368
Fast and precise map‐making for massively multi‐detector CMB experiments
Future cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarisation experiments aim to measure an unprecedentedly small signal - the primordial gravity wave component of the polarisation field B-mode. To achieve this, they will analyse huge dataset s, involving years worth of timeordered data (TOD) from massively multi-detector focal planes. This creates the need for fast and precise methods to complement the M-L approach in analysis pipelines. In this paper, we investigate fast map-making methods as applied to long duration, massively multi-detector, ground-based experiments, in the context of the search for B-modes. We focus on two alternative map-making approaches: destriping and TOD filtering , comparing their performance on simulated multi-detector polarisation data. We have written an optimised, parallel destriping code, the DEStriping CARTographer (DESCART), that is generalised for massive focal planes, including the potential effect of cross-correlate d TOD 1/f noise. We also determine the scaling of computing time for destriping as applied to a simulated full-season data-set for a realistic experiment. We find that destriping can out-perf orm filtering in estimating both the large-scale E and B-mode angular power spectra. In particular, filtering can produce significant spurious B-mode power via EB mixing. Whilst this can be removed, it contributes to the variance of B-mode bandpower estimates at scales near the primordial B-mode peak. For the experimental configuration we simulate, this has an effect o n the possible detection significance for primordial B-modes. Destriping is a viable alternative fast method to the full M-L approach that does not cause the problems associated with fil tering, and is flexible enough to
122687802
Imaging the early universe with the BOOMERanG Experiment
The BOOMERanG experiment has recently detected temperature fluctuations the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), the otherwise isotropic radiation coming from the early Universe. These anisotropies have a low contrast (about 30 ppm) and feature a peculiar angular power spectrum at angles corresponding to sub-horizon scales at recombination. In the current cosmological model, these structures result from acoustic oscillations in the primeval plasma. In the framework of the Hot Big Bang theory with the inflationary hypothesis, the statistical properties of the image of the CMB allow us to measure most of the cosmological parameters.
6355453
Rotating Electric Classical Solutions of 2+1 D U(1) Einstein Maxwell Chern-Simons
We study electric stationary radial symmetric classical solutions of the U(1) Einstein Maxwell Chern-Simons theory coupled to a gravitational massless scalar field with a cosmological constant in 2+1 dimensions. Generic aspects of the theory are discussed at an introductory level. We study solutions for both negative sign (standard) and positive sign (ghost) of the gauge sector concluding that although the expressions for the solutions are the same, the constants as well as the physics change significantly. It is found a rotating electric point particle. For the standard sign and specific values of the parameters corresponding to solutions with positive mass the singularity is dressed (in the sense that itself constitutes an horizon). The space-time curvatures can be both positive or negative depending on the dominance of the scalar or topologically massive matter. The Chern-Simons term is responsible for interesting features, besides only allowing for rotating solutions, it imposes restrictive bounds on the cosmological constant $\Lambda$ such that it belongs to a positive interval and is switch on and off by the topological mass $m^2$. Furthermore the charge, angular momentum and mass of the particle solution are expressed uniquely as functions of the ratio between the cosmological constant and the topological mass squared $x=\Lambda/m^2$. The main drawback of our particle solution is that the mass is divergent. Our background is a rotating flat space without angular deficit. We briefly discuss parity and time-inversion violation by the Chern-Simons term which is explicit in the solutions obtained, their angular momentum only depends on the relative sign between the Chern-Simons term and the Maxwell term. Trivial solutions are briefly studied holding non-singular extended configurations.
119410476
Why Randall-Sundrum Scenarious are not Compatible with an Orbifolded Fifth Dimension
We show the (already known) fact that Randall-Sundrum scenarious although compatible with a ${\mathbb{Z}}_2$ orbifold symmetry cannot hold regularity of the fields at the orbifold planes in the absence of boundary actions and respective jumps of the fields. This makes the models mathematical inconsistence and invalidate the inclusion of such models in a higher dimensional theory such as string theory. For completeness we point out some directions already in the literature and in progress.
119090745
Do LEP results suggest that quarks have integer electric charges
We argue that recent results from two-photon processes at LEP are better explained by quarks possessing integer electric charges.
748074
A Pseudo-Photon in Non-Trivial Background Fields
We show that in the presence of external fields for which either Ḃ 6= 0 or ∇ × E 6= 0 it is not possible to derive the classical Maxwell equations from an action with only one gauge field. We suggest that one possible solution is to consider a second physical pseudo-vector gauge field C. The action for this theory is originally motivated by the inclusion of magnetic monopoles. These particles play no role in this work and our argument is only based in, that the violation of the Bianchi identities, cannot be accounted at the action level with only the standard gauge field. We give a particular example for a periodic rotating external magnetic field. Our construction holds that at classical level both the vector and pseudo-vector gauge fields A and C are regular. We compare pseudo-photon with paraphoton (graviphoton) theories concluding that, besides the mechanisms of gauge symmetry already studied by the authors, the Bianchi identities violation are a crucial difference between both theories. We also show that the effects in PVLAS experiment due to the inclusion of pseudo-photons cannot be distinguished from the usual classical induced electric and magnetic fields due to the standard Maxwell equations. Therefore, although this kind of optical experiments cannot test the existence of pseudo-photons, they do not exclude its existence. PACS: ?03.50.De, ?03.70.+k, ?11.15.-q
88506479
Parameterizing the flattening of galaxies rotation curves on an expanding locally anisotropic background
In this paper are discussed possible many body generalizations of the expanding locally anisotropic metric ansatz with respect to approximately Newtonian gravitational systems. This ansatz consistently describes local point-like matter distributions on the expanding Universe also allowing for a covariant parameterization of gravitational interactions at intermediate length scales. 
As an example of applicability it is modeled a disk galaxy model matching the physical parameters of the galaxy UGC2885 and it is shown that, by fine-tuning the metric functional parameter, the flattening of the galaxy rotation curve is fully parameterized by this metric. In addition it is numerically computed the mass-energy density corrections due to the expanding anisotropic background and explicitly shown that although there are negative contributions within the galaxy plane the total mass-energy density is strictly positive both at the galaxy plane and outside the galaxy plane. As the functional parameter for this metric is an exponential factor is required a floating point precision of $250$ significant digits for root finding routines and $200$ significant digits to evaluate the effective mass-energy density rendering a final precision of the results presented above double precision ($16$ significant digits). 
It is further shown that these results are consistent with the interpretation of the gravitational corrections as due to Dark Matter, in particular constituting a novel heuristic local parameterization for the Dark Matter distribution within the galaxy plane consistent with both local scale and cosmological scale physical laws which is useful to further investigate the local properties of Dark Matter.