J. A. R. Cembranos

Brane-World Dark Matter

We show that, in the context of brane-world scenarios with low tension tau=f(4), massive brane fluctuations (branons) are natural dark matter candidates. We calculate the present abundances for both hot (warm) and cold branons in terms of the branon mass M and the tension scale f. The results are compared with the current experimental bounds on these parameters. We also study the prospects for their detection in direct search experiments and comment on their characteristic signals in the indirect ones.

The Newtonian limit at intermediate energies

We study the metric solutions for the gravitational equations in Modified Gravity Models (MGMs). In models with negative powers of the scalar curvature, we show that the Newtonian Limit (NL) is well defined as a limit at intermediate energies, in contrast with the usual low energy interpretation. Indeed, we show that the gravitational interaction is modified at low densities or low curvatures.

Superweakly interacting massive particle solutions to small scale structure problems.

Collisionless, cold dark matter in the form of weakly-interacting massive particles (WIMPs) is well-motivated in particle physics, naturally yields the observed relic density, and successfully explains structure formation on large scales. On small scales, however, it predicts too much power, leading to cuspy halos, dense cores, and large numbers of subhalos, in apparent conflict with observations. We consider superWIMP dark matter, produced with large velocity in late decays at times 10^5 s - 10^8 s. As analyzed by Kaplinghat in a more general setting, we find that superWIMPs have sufficiently large free-streaming lengths and low phase space densities to help resolve small scale structure problems while preserving all of the above-mentioned WIMP virtues.

Dark matter from R2 gravity.

The modification of Einstein gravity at high energies is mandatory from a quantum approach. In this work, we point out that this modification necessarily introduces new degrees of freedom. We analyze the possibility that these new gravitational states can provide the main contribution to the nonbaryonic dark matter of the Universe. By following an effective field theory approach, we illustrate this idea with the first and simplest high energy modification of the Einstein-Hilbert action: R2 gravity.

Gravitational collapse in f(R) theories

We study the gravitational collapse in modified gravitational theories. In particular, we analyze a general f(R) model with uniformly collapsing cloud of self-gravitating dust particles. This analysis shares analogies with the formation of large-scale structures in the early Universe and with the formation of stars in a molecular cloud experiencing gravitational collapse. In the same way, this investigation can be used as a first approximation to the modification that stellar objects can suffer in these modified theories of gravity. We study concrete examples, and find that the analysis of gravitational collapse is an important tool to constrain models that present late-time cosmological acceleration.

Photon spectra from WIMP annihilation

If the present dark matter in the Universe annihilates into standard model particles, it must contribute to the fluxes of cosmic rays that are detected on the Earth and, in particular, to the observed gamma-ray fluxes. The magnitude of such a contribution depends on the particular dark matter candidate, but certain features of the produced photon spectra may be analyzed in a rather model-independent fashion. In this work we provide the complete photon spectra coming from WIMP annihilation into standard model particle-antiparticle pairs obtained by extensive Monte Carlo simulations. We present results for each individual annihilation channel and provide analytical fitting formulas for the different spectra for a wide range of WIMP masses.

Kerr-Newman black holes in f(R) theories

In the context of f(R) modified gravity theories, we study the Kerr-Newman black hole solutions. We study nonzero constant scalar curvature solutions and discuss the metric tensor that satisfies the modified field equations. We conclude that, in the absence of a cosmological constant, the black holes (BHs) existence is determined by the sign of a parameter h dependent of the mass, the charge, the spin and the scalar curvature. Different values of this parameter lead to diverse astrophysical objects, such as extremal and marginal extremal BHs. Thermodynamics of BHs are then studied, as well as their local and global stability. We analyze these features in a large variety of f(R) models. We remark the main differences with respect to general relativity and show the rich thermodynamical phenomenology that characterizes this framework.

Thermal Duality and Hagedorn Transition from p-adic Strings

We develop the finite temperature theory of p-adic string models. We find that the thermal properties of these nonlocal field theories can be interpreted either as contributions of standard thermal modes with energies proportional to the temperature, or inverse thermal modes with energies proportional to the inverse of the temperature, leading to a thermal duality at leading order (genus one) analogous to the well-known T duality of string theory. The p-adic strings also recover the asymptotic limits (high and low temperature) for arbitrary genus that purely stringy calculations have yielded. We also discuss our findings surrounding the nature of the Hagedorn transition.

Cosmological and astrophysical limits on brane fluctuations

We consider a general brane-world model parametrized by the brane tension scale f and the branon mass M. For a low tension compared to the fundamental gravitational scale, we calculate the relic branon abundance and its contribution to the cosmological dark matter. We compare this result with the current observational limits on the total and hot dark matter energy densities and derive the corresponding bounds on f and M. Using the nucleosynthesis bounds on the number of relativistic species, we also set a limit on the number of light branons in terms of the brane tension. Finally, we estimate the bounds coming from the energy loss rate in supernovae explosions due to massive branon emission.

Branon search in hadronic colliders

In the context of the brane-world scenarios with compactified extra dimensions, we study the production of brane fluctuations (branons) in hadron colliders (p (p) over bar, pp, and e(+/-)p) in terms of the brane tension parameter f, the branon mass M, and the number of branons N. From the absence of monojet events at HERA and Tevatron (run I), we set bounds on these parameters and we also study how such bounds could be improved at Tevatron (run II) and the future LHC. The single-photon channel is also analyzed for the two last colliders.