Daniel J. H. Chung

CMBPol Mission Concept Study Probing Ination with CMB Polarization

We summarize the utility of precise cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization measurements as probes of the physics of ination. We focus on the prospects for using CMB measurementsWe summarize the utility of precise cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization measurements as probes of the physics of inflation. We focus on the prospects for using CMB measurements to differentiate various inflationary mechanisms. In particular, a detection of primordial B‐mode polarization would demonstrate that inflation occurred at a very high energy scale, and that the inflaton traversed a super‐Planckian distance in field space. We explain how such a detection or constraint would illuminate aspects of physics at the Planck scale. Moreover, CMB measurements can constrain the scale‐dependence and non‐Gaussianity of the primordial fluctuations and limit the possibility of a significant isocurvature contribution. Each such limit provides crucial information on the underlying inflationary dynamics. Finally, we quantify these considerations by presenting forecasts for the sensitivities of a future satellite experiment to the inflationary parameters.

Superheavy dark matter

We show that in large-field inflationary scenarios, superheavy (many orders of magnitude larger than the weak scale) dark matter will be produced in cosmologically interesting quantities if superheavy stable particles exist in the mass spectrum. We show that these particles may be produced naturally during the transition from the inflationary phase to either a matter-dominated or radiation-dominated phase as a result of the expansion of the background spacetime acting on vacuum quantum fluctuations of the dark matter field. We find that as long as there are stable particles whose mass is of the order of the inflaton mass (presumably around 10{sup 13}thinspGeV), they will be produced in sufficient abundance to give {Omega}{sub 0}=1, quite independently of any details of the nongravitational interactions of the dark-matter field. {copyright} {ital 1998} {ital The American Physical Society}

Production of massive particles during reheating

What is commonly called the reheat temperature,

Probing Planckian physics: Resonant production of particles during inflation and features in the primordial power spectrum

{T}_{\mathrm{RH}},

Nonthermal Supermassive Dark Matter

is not the maximum temperature obtained after inflation. The maximum temperature is, in fact, much larger than

Gravitational production of superheavy dark matter

{T}_{\mathrm{RH}}.

125 GeV Higgs boson and electroweak phase transition model classes

As an application of this we consider the production of massive stable dark-matter particles of mass

Cuscuton: A Causal Field Theory with an Infinite Speed of Sound

{M}_{X}

Classical Inflation Field Induced Creation of Superheavy Dark Matter

during reheating, and show that their abundance is suppressed as a power of

Are ultrahigh energy cosmic rays a signal for supersymmetry

{T}_{\mathrm{RH}}{/M}_{X}