Related papers: The Physics of Light Relics
Cosmological observations allow to measure the abundance of light relics produced in the early Universe. Most studies focus on the thermal freeze-out scenario, yet light relics produced by freeze-in are generic for models in which new light…
Supersymmetry can explain the observed dark matter relic density with a neutralino dark matter particle and a coannihilating, almost mass-degenerate sparticle. If this were the case in nature, a linear electron positron collider like the…
Neutrinos are amongst the most abundant particles in the universe. The fact that they are massive particles proves that the Standard Model is an incomplete theory and needs to be extended. This thesis focuses on the study of neutrino…
It is now widely acknowledged that cosmic rays experiments can test possible new physics directly generated at the Planck scale or at some other fundamental scale. By studying particle properties at energies far beyond the reach of any…
The off-site continuums are proposed for the cosmological models of the galaxies and the Universe. It is shown that many visual properties of galaxies and the Universe may be described on frames of the off-site continuums methodology. In…
Sterile neutrinos are natural extensions to the standard model of particle physics in neutrino mass generation mechanisms. If they are relatively light, less than approximately 10 keV, they can alter cosmology significantly, from the early…
Thermal relics lighter than an MeV contribute to the energy density of the universe at the time of nucleosynthesis and recombination. Constraints on extra radiation degrees of freedom typically exclude even the simplest of such dark…
Progress in observational cosmology over the past five years has established that the Universe is dominated dynamically by dark matter and dark energy. Both these new and apparently independent forms of matter-energy have properties that…
The accelerating expansion of the universe presents an exciting, fundamental challenge to the standard models of particle physics and cosmology. I highlight some of the outstanding challenges in both developing theoretical models and…
Standard Model extensions often predict low-mass and very weakly interacting particles, such as the axion. A number of small-scale experiments at the intensity/precision frontier are actively searching for these elusive particles,…
We investigate the relic density n_\chi of non-relativistic long-lived or stable particles \chi in non-standard cosmological scenarios. We calculate the relic abundance starting from arbitrary initial temperatures of the radiation-dominated…
The Standard Model of particle physics is a $SU(3)_c\times SU(2)_L\times U(1)_Y$ gauge theory that can explain the strong, weak, and electromagnetic interactions between the particles. The gravitational interaction is described by…
Although the MiniBooNE experiment has severely restricted the possible existence of light sterile neutrinos, a few anomalies persist in oscillation data, and the possibility of extra light species contributing as a subdominant hot (or warm)…
The archetypal model for the recently discovered dark energy component of the universe is based on the existence of a scalar field whose dynamical evolution comes down today to a non-vanishing cosmological constant. In the past - before…
A massive particle decaying into neutrinos in the early Universe is known to be less constrained than if it was decaying into other standard model particles. However, even if the decay proceeds into neutrinos, the latter still inevitably…
Production of massive stable relics in $R^2$-modified gravity is considered. It is shown that the cosmological evolution and kinetics of massive species differs significantly from those in the conventional cosmology. The results are applied…
Recent cosmological measurements favour additional relativistic energy density beyond the one provided by the three active neutrinos and photons of the Standard Model (SM). This is often referred to as "dark radiation", suggesting the need…
The small-scale power spectrum of the cosmological matter distribution together with other cosmological data provides a sensitive measure of the hot dark matter fraction, leading to restrictive neutrino mass limits. We extend this argument…
We study the cosmological impact of warm, dark-sector relic particles produced as Hawking radiation in a primordial-black-hole-dominated universe before big bang nucleosynthesis. If these dark-sector particles are stable, they would survive…
The intersection of the cosmic and neutrino frontiers is a rich field where much discovery space still remains. Neutrinos play a pivotal role in the hot big bang cosmology, influencing the dynamics of the universe over numerous decades in…