Antonio Enea Romano

Effects of particle production during inflation

The impact of particle production during inflation on the primordial curvature perturbation spectrum is investigated both analytically and numerically. We obtain an oscillatory behavior on small scales, while on large scales the spectrum is unaffected. The amplitude of the oscillations is proportional to the number of coupled fields, their mass, and the square of the coupling constant. The oscillations are due to a discontinuity in the second time derivative of the inflaton, arising from a temporary violation of the slow-roll conditions. A similar effect on the power spectrum should be produced also in other inflationary models where the slow-roll conditions are temporarily violated.

Effects of inhomogeneities on apparent cosmological observables: “fake” evolving dark energy

Using the exact Lemaitre–Bondi–Tolman solution with a non-vanishing cosmological constant Λ, we investigate how the presence of a local spherically symmetric inhomogeneity can affect apparent cosmological observables, such as the deceleration parameter or the effective equation of state of dark energy (DE), derived from the luminosity distance under the assumption that the real space-time is exactly homogeneous and isotropic. The presence of a local underdensity is found to produce apparent phantom behavior of DE, while a locally overdense region leads to apparent quintessence behavior. We consider relatively small large scale inhomogeneities which today are not linear and could be seeded by primordial curvature perturbations compatible with CMB bounds. Our study shows how observations in an inhomogeneous ΛCDM universe with initial conditions compatible with the inflationary beginning, if interpreted under the wrong assumption of homogeneity, can lead to the wrong conclusion about the presence of “fake” evolving dark energy instead of Λ.

Lemaitre-Tolman-Bondi universes as alternatives to dark energy : Does positive averaged acceleration imply positive cosmic acceleration?

We show that positive averaged acceleration obtained in LTB models through spatial averaging can require integration over a region beyond the event horizon of the central observer. We provide an example of a LTB model with positive averaged acceleration in which the luminosity distance does not contain information about the entire spatially averaged region, making the averaged acceleration unobservable. Since the cosmic acceleration is obtained from fitting the observed luminosity distance to a FRW model we conclude that in general a positive averaged acceleration in LTB models does not imply a positive FRW cosmic acceleration.

Mimicking the cosmological constant for more than one observable with large scale inhomogeneities

Assuming the definition of the inversion problem (IP) as the exact matching of the terms in the low redshift expansion of cosmological observables calculated for different cosmological models, we solve the IP for D L (z) and the redshift spherical shell mass density mn(z) for a central observer in a Lemaitre-Tolman-Bondi (LTB) space without cosmological constant and a generic ACDM model. We show that the solution of the IP is unique, corresponds to a matter density profile which is not smooth at the center, and that the same conclusions can be reached expanding self-consistently to any order all the relevant quantities. Contrary to the case of a single observable inversion problem, it is impossible to solve the IP (LTB vs ACDM) for both mn(z) and D L ( Z ) while setting one of the two functions k(r) or t b (r) to zero, even allowing nonsmooth matter profiles. Our conclusions are general, since they are exclusively based on comparing directly physical observables in redshift space, and do not depend on any special ansatz or restriction for the functions defining a LTB model.

Can the cosmological constant be mimicked by smooth large-scale inhomogeneities for more than one observable?

As an alternative to dark energy it has been suggested that we may be at the center of an inhomogeneous isotropic universe described by a Lemaitre-Tolman-Bondi (LTB) solution of Einsteins field equations. In order to test such an hypothesis we calculate the low redshift expansion of the luminosity distance DL(z) and the redshift spherical shell mass density mn(z) for a central observer in a LTB space without cosmological constant and show how they cannot fit the observations implied by a ΛCDM model if the conditions to avoid a weak central singularity are imposed, i.e. if the matter distribution is smooth everywhere. Our conclusions are valid for any value of the cosmological constant, not only for ΩΛ > 1/3 as implied by previous proofs that qapp0 has to be positive in a smooth LTB space, based on considering only the luminosity distance. The observational signatures of smooth LTB matter dominated models are fundamentally different from the ones of ΛCDM models not only because it is not possible to reproduce a negative apparent central deceleration qapp0, but because of deeper differences in their space-time geometry which make impossible solve the inversion problem when more than one observable is considered, and emerge at any redshift, not only for z = 0.

Effects of discontinuities of the derivatives of the inflaton potential

We study the effects of a class of features of the inflaton potential, corresponding to discontinuities in its derivatives. We perform fully numerical calculations and derive analytical approximations for the curvature perturbations spectrum and the bispectrum which are in good agreement with the numerical results. The spectrum of primordial perturbations has oscillations around the scale

The statistics of voids as a tool to constrain cosmological parameters: sigma_8 and Omega_m h

k_0

The maximum sizes of large scale structures in alternative theories of gravity

k0 which leaves the horizon at the time