Constraining fundamental physics with current cosmological data
by
Eleonora Di Valentino(Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris)
→
Europe/Berlin
Building 67, SemRm 10 (DESY Hamburg)
Building 67, SemRm 10
DESY Hamburg
Description
In order to identify possible hints for new physics, I will explore the tensions arising from several astrophysical and cosmological experiments. I will analyze the values of the neutrino effective number Neff arising from the two ground based experiments ACT and SPT combined with WMAP7, and I will compare these results with the Planck satellite bounds.
Afterwards, I will investigate the constraints on the possible candidates for this dark radiation component. Actually, an excess of dark radiation could be due to the presence of relic relativistic unknown particles, beyond the standard model of particle physics (as thermal axions or sterile
neutrinos) at recombination epoch, and I will present constraints on their masses. However, this excess could be also due to a non-vanishing neutrino chemical potential, and I will explore this possibility in the Curvaton scenario.
Moreover, I will present the current bounds we found on the total neutrino masses, considering BAO mesurements given by BOSS DR11 combined with other datasets, in several extended cosmological scenarios.
Furthermore, I will consider also the possibility that non-thermal axions account for all the cold dark matter present in the Universe and I will present the constraints on their masses.
Finally, I will show how the accuracy reached by current cosmological data allow us to give independent information on nuclear rates, as the radiative capture reaction d(p,gamma)^3He.