Particle physics and cosmology (Q1585054)

The present paper is a review of observational tests, including recent ones, on cosmological theories. The author focuses his attention on observations of the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB) and its interpretation in terms of inflationary models, and on particle candidates for dark matter. The first part of the paper is dedicated to the study of the CMB. There, the author explains that although the CMB was shown to be highly isotropic, by different experiments, it also has small anisotropies. Higher-order anisotropies, than the dipole one, are usually interpreted in the context of cosmological inflation. More precisely, they are ascribed to density fluctuations originating from quantum fluctuations in the scalar field whose potential energy drives inflation. These fluctuations induce perturbations in the field energy in different parts of the Universe, evolving subsequently into fluctuations in the temperature of the CMB. The magnitude of these perturbations, and therefore the magnitude of the fluctuations in the temperature (\(\delta T/T\)), are related to the field energy density during inflation (\(\mu\)). The present value of \(\delta T/T\) (\( \approx 10^{-5}\)) observed by COBE favors \(\mu \leq 10^{16} \text{ GeV}\), comparable with the unification scale in GUTs. In other words, inflation gives us the opportunity to probe energy scales far beyond the direct reach of current accelerators. The author informs that from CMB data, several alternative models of structure formation based on topological defects of field theories were discarded. Therefore, inflationary models are gaining the status of standard models of structure formation. Then, future CMB measurements, by MAP and Planck, will make precision tests of inflationary models. In order to test these models, one has to measure the scalar perturbation mode \(S\), the tensor mode \(T\), and their spectral indices \(n\), \(n_T\). Knowledge of them enables the inflationary potential to be reconstructed. One of the many figures of the paper shows how \(T/S\) and \(n\) vary in different inflationary models, and the error ellipses expected from Planck. It is clear from the figure that the measurements from Planck will distinguish between several different inflationary models with distinct potentials. In the second part of the paper the author discusses particle candidates for dark matter, in the context of inflationary models. Inflation suggests that \(\Omega_{Tot} \equiv \rho_{Tot}/\rho_{crit} = 1\), where \(\rho_{Tot}\) is the total energy density of the Universe, \(\rho_{crit}\) is the critical density given by: \(\rho_{crit} \approx 2 \times 10^{-29} h^2 g cm^{-3}\), \(h\) is the current Hubble expansion rate in units of \(100 km s^{-1} Mpc^{-1}\). \(\Omega_{Tot}\) is divided in two parts: \(\Omega_m\) calculated from the total matter density (\(\rho_m\)) and \(\Omega_\Lambda\) calculated from the cosmological vacuum density energy (\(\rho_\Lambda\)). \(\Lambda_m \approx 0.3\), as suggested by observations of galaxy clusters. The contribution coming from baryonic matter (\(\Omega_b\)) to this total is of order \(0.1\), which means that there should be a great amount of non-baryonic, dark matter in the Universe. These results imply that \(\Omega_\Lambda \approx 0.7\) for inflation to be correct. Dark matter candidates are roughly separated in two families: hot dark matter (HDM), formed by light particles and cold dark matter (CDM), formed by heavy particles. The theory of structure formation suggests that most of the matter density is in the form of cold dark matter, \(\Omega_{CDM} \approx \Omega_m\). The author introduces the neutrinos as the best candidates for HDM, with masses constrained by cosmological experiments to be \(\leq 3\)eV. As the best candidate for CDM, he proposes the lightest supersymmetric particles. In particular, he concentrates on the \(\widetilde{\gamma}/ \widetilde{H}^0/ \widetilde{Z}^0\) neutralino combination \(\chi\). Based on cosmological and LEP constraints, the neutralino mass is expected to be \(\geq 50 \text{ GeV}\). The cold dark matter candidates introduced, so far, in the paper were obtained based on the assumption that they were at one time in thermal equilibrium. The author briefly mentions some examples of heavy relic particles that could have been produced if non-thermal mechanisms were present in the early Universe. He also, quickly, comments on possible explanations for the cosmological vacuum energy which originates the \(\Omega_\Lambda\) term. The author ends by giving his confidence ratings for the various particle dark matter candidates discussed in the paper.