Sergey Sibiryakov

Higgs inflation: consistency and generalisations

We analyse the self-consistency of inflation in the Standard Model, where the Higgs field has a large non-minimal coupling to gravity. We determine the domain of energies in which this model represents a valid effective field theory as a function of the background Higgs field. This domain is bounded above by the cutoff scale which is found to be higher than the relevant dynamical scales throughout the whole history of the Universe, including the inflationary epoch and reheating. We present a systematic scheme to take into account quantum loop corrections to the inflationary calculations within the framework of effective field theory. We discuss the additional assumptions that must be satisfied by the ultra-violet completion of the theory to allow connection between the parameters of the inflationary effective theory and those describing the low-energy physics relevant for the collider experiments. A class of generalisations of inflationary theories with similar properties is constructed.

Renormalization of Hořava gravity

We prove perturbative renormalizability of projectable Horava gravity. The key element of the argument is the choice of a gauge which ensures the correct anisotropic scaling of the propagators and their uniform falloff at large frequencies and momenta. This guarantees that the counterterms required to absorb the loop divergences are local and marginal or relevant with respect to the anisotropic scaling. Gauge invariance of the counterterms is achieved by making use of the background-covariant formalism. We also comment on the difficulties of this approach when addressing the renormalizability of the nonprojectable model.

On stability of electroweak vacuum during inflation

We study Coleman { De Luccia tunneling of the Standard Model Higgs eld during ination in the case when the electroweak vacuum is metastable. We verify that the tunneling rate is exponentially suppressed. The main contribution to the suppression is the same as in at space-time. We analytically estimate the corrections due to the expansion of the universe and an eective mass term in the Higgs potential that can be present at ination.

Cosmological constraints on deviations from Lorentz invariance in gravity and dark matter

We consider a scenario where local Lorentz invariance is violated by the existence of a preferred time direction at every space-time point. This scenario can arise in the context of quantum gravity and its description at low energies contains a unit time-like vector field which parameterizes the preferred direction. The particle physics tests of Lorentz invariance preclude a direct coupling of this vector to the fields of the Standard Model, but do not bear implications for dark matter. We discuss how the presence of this vector and its possible coupling to dark matter affect the evolution of the Universe. At the level of homogeneous cosmology the only effect of Lorentz invariance violation is a rescaling of the expansion rate. The physics is richer at the level of perturbations. We identify three effects crucial for observations: the rescaling of the matter contribution to the Poisson equation, the appearance of an extra contribution to the anisotropic stress and the scale-dependent enhancement of dark matter clustering. These effects result in distinctive features in the power spectra of the CMB and density fluctuations. Making use of the data from Planck and WiggleZ we obtain the most stringent cosmological constraints to date on departures from Lorentz symmetry. Our analysis provides the first direct bounds on deviations from Lorentz invariance in the dark matter sector.

Ultralight Dark Matter Resonates with Binary Pulsars

We consider the scenario where dark matter (DM) is represented by an ultralight classical scalar field performing coherent periodic oscillations. We point out that such DM perturbs the dynamics of binary systems either through its gravitational field or via direct coupling to ordinary matter. This perturbation gets resonantly amplified if the frequency of DM oscillations is close to a (half-)integer multiple of the orbital frequency of the system and leads to a secular variation of the orbital period. We suggest using binary pulsars as probes of this scenario and estimate their sensitivity. While the current accuracy of observations is not yet sufficient to probe the purely gravitational effect of DM, it already yields constraints on direct coupling that are competitive with other bounds. The sensitivity will increase with the upcoming radio observatories such as the Square Kilometer Array.

Gravity Cutoff in Theories with Large Discrete Symmetries

We set an upper bound on the gravitational cutoff in theories with exact quantum numbers of large N periodicity, such as Z(N) discrete symmetries. The bound stems from black hole physics. It is similar to the bound appearing in theories with N particle species, though a priori, a large discrete symmetry does not imply a large number of species. Thus, there emerges a potentially wide class of new theories that address the hierarchy problem by lowering the gravitational cutoff due to the existence of large Z(10(32))-type symmetries.

Time-Sliced Perturbation Theory II: Baryon Acoustic Oscillations and Infrared Resummation

We use time-sliced perturbation theory (TSPT) to give an accurate description of the infrared non-linear effects affecting the baryonic acoustic oscillations (BAO) present in the distribution of matter at very large scales. In TSPT this can be done via a systematic resummation that has a simple diagrammatic representation and does not involve uncontrollable approximations. We discuss the power counting rules and derive explicit expressions for the resummed matter power spectrum up to next-to leading order and the bispectrum at the leading order. The two-point correlation function agrees well with N-body data at BAO scales. The systematic approach also allows to reliably assess the shift of the baryon acoustic peak due to non-linear effects.

Completing Lorentz violating massive gravity at high energies

Theories with massive gravitons are interesting for a variety of physical applications, ranging from cosmological phenomena to holographic modeling of condensed matter systems. To date, they have been formulated as effective field theories with a cutoff proportional to a positive power of the graviton mass mg and much smaller than that of the massless theory (MP ≈ 1019 GeV in the case of general relativity). In this paper, we present an ultraviolet completion for massive gravity valid up to a high energy scale independent of the graviton mass. The construction is based on the existence of a preferred time foliation combined with spontaneous condensation of vector fields. The perturbations of these fields are massive and below their mass, the theory reduces to a model of Lorentz violating massive gravity. The latter theory possesses instantaneous modes whose consistent quantization we discuss in detail. We briefly study some modifications to gravitational phenomenology at low-energies. The homogeneous cosmological solutions are the same as in the standard cosmology. The gravitational potential of point sources agrees with the Newtonian one at distances small with respect to mg−1. Interestingly, it becomes repulsive at larger distances.

UV-extending ghost inflation

We present a setup that provides a partial UV-completion of the ghost inflation model up to a scale which can be almost as high as the Planck mass. This is achieved by coupling the inflaton to the Lorentz-violating sector described by the Einstein-aether theory or its khronometric version. Compared to previous works on ghost inflation our setup allows to go beyond the study of small perturbations and include the background dynamics in a unified framework. In the specific regime when the expansion of the Universe is dominated by the kinetic energy of the inflaton we find that the model predicts rather high tensor-to-scalar ratio r similar to 0.02 divided by 0.2 and non-Gaussianity of equilateral type with f(NL), in the range from -50 to -5.

Time-sliced perturbation theory for large scale structure I: general formalism

We present a new analytic approach to describe large scale structure formation in the mildly non-linear regime. The central object of the method is the time-dependent probability distribution function generating correlators of the cosmological observables at a given moment of time. Expanding the distribution function around the Gaussian weight we formulate a perturbative technique to calculate non-linear corrections to cosmological correlators, similar to the diagrammatic expansion in a three-dimensional Euclidean quantum field theory, with time playing the role of an external parameter. For the physically relevant case of cold dark matter in an Einstein--de Sitter universe, the time evolution of the distribution function can be found exactly and is encapsulated by a time-dependent coupling constant controlling the perturbative expansion. We show that all building blocks of the expansion are free from spurious infrared enhanced contributions that plague the standard cosmological perturbation theory. This paves the way towards the systematic resummation of infrared effects in large scale structure formation. We also argue that the approach proposed here provides a natural framework to account for the influence of short-scale dynamics on larger scales along the lines of effective field theory.