Related papers: Cosmic Millicharge Background and Reheating Probes
The cosmic microwave background temperature is a cornerstone astrophysical observable. Its present value is tightly constrained, but its redshift dependence, which can now be determined until redshift $z\sim6.34$, is also an important probe…
We conduct a dedicated study of searches for millicharged particles (mCPs) utilizing scintillator-based detectors at high-intensity fixed-target experiments, with particular focus on the SpinQuest and forthcoming Search for Hidden Particles…
Millicharged particles are well-motivated dark matter candidates arising in many extensions of the Standard Model. We show that, despite their tiny coupling $e_m$ to photons, millicharged dark matter (mDM) in the Earth's geomagnetic field…
The temperature and polarization inhomogeneities of the Cosmic Microwave Background might bear the mark of pre-decoupling magnetism. The parameters of a putative magnetized background are hereby estimated from the observed temperature…
The Cosmic Microwave Background radiation is a fundamental prediction of Hot Big Bang cosmology. The temperature of its black-body spectrum has been measured at the present time, $T_{\rm CMBR,0}$ = 2.726$\pm$ 0.010 K, and is predicted to…
We show that next generation Cosmic Microwave Background experiments will be capable of the first ever measurement of the inflaton coupling to other particles, opening a new window to probe the connection between cosmic inflation and…
The thermal history of the universe before the epoch of nucleosynthesis is unknown. The maximum temperature in the radiation-dominated era, which we will refer to as the reheat temperature, may have been as low as 0.7 MeV. In this paper we…
The origin and composition of the cosmological dark matter remain a mystery. However, upcoming 21-cm measurements during cosmic dawn, the period of the first stellar formation, can provide new clues on the nature of dark matter. During this…
Following the pioneering observations with COBE in the early 1990s, studies of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) have focused on temperature and polarization anisotropies. CMB spectral distortions - tiny departures of the CMB energy…
Relativistic millicharged particles ($\chi_q$) have been proposed in various extensions to the Standard Model of particle physics. We consider the scenarios where they are produced at nuclear reactor core and via interactions of cosmic-rays…
We investigate the accuracy attainable by forthcoming space-based observations of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature and polarization anisotropy in constraining the dark energy density parameter $\Oq$ and equation of state…
A terrestrial population of millicharged particles that interact significantly with normal matter can arise if they make up a dark matter subcomponent or if they are light enough to be produced in cosmic ray air showers. Such particles…
Cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature anisotropies have and will continue to revolutionize our understanding of cosmology. The recent discovery of the previously predicted acoustic peaks in the power spectrum has established a…
We discuss the thermodynamic and dynamical properties of a variable dark energy model with density scaling as $\rho_x \propto (1+z)^{m}$, z being the redshift. These models lead to the creation/disruption of matter and radiation, which…
Although it is well known that the bulk of dark matter (DM) has to be cold, the existence of an additional sub-dominant, hot species remains a valid possibility. In this paper we investigate the potential of the cosmic shear power spectrum…
Unparticle cosmology gives an unconventional outlook on the dark sector of cosmology, increasingly challenging $\Lambda\mbox{CDM}$ by $H_0$-tension. This model derives from a finite temperature broken conformal symmetry of radiation,…
We explore the cosmology and phenomenology of millicharged and millicharge-like dark matter with masses from 1 eV to 10 keV and charges of $10^{-18}$ to $10^{-14}$. Dark matter in this mass range cannot be thermally produced, but can arise…
The polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation carries essential information on early stages of the Universe such as the cosmic inflation, forming cosmological structures through gravitational lensing, and the epoch of…
With polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) now detected, and confirmed by several independent experiments, the next goal is to characterise accurately its statistical properties. In these lecture notes we review the physical…
In this research, we present an alternative methodology to search for ring-like structures in the sky with unusually large temperature gradients, namely Hawking points (HP), in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), which are possible…