Astrophysics and Astronomy Commons^™

New Physics In The Age Of Precision Cosmology, Vivian I. Sabla

Dartmouth College Ph.D Dissertations

The Lambda-cold dark matter (LCDM) model has become the standard model of cosmology because of its ability to reproduce a vast array of cosmological observations, from the earliest moments of our Universe, to the current period of accelerated expansion, which it does with great accuracy. However, the success of this model only distracts from its inherent flaws and ambiguities. LCDM is purely phenomenological, providing no physical explanation for the nature of dark matter, responsible for the formation and evolution of large-scale structure, and giving an inconclusive explanation for dark energy, which drives the current period of accelerated expansion.

Furthermore, cracks …

Long-Lived Time-Dependent Remnants During Cosmological Symmetry Breaking: From Inflation To The Electroweak Scale, Marcelo Gleiser, Noah Graham, Nikitas Stamatopoulos

Dartmouth Scholarship

Through a detailed numerical investigation in three spatial dimensions, we demonstrate that long-lived time-dependent field configurations emerge dynamically during symmetry breaking in an expanding de Sitter spacetime. We investigate two situations: a single scalar field with a double-well potential and an SU(2) non-Abelian Higgs model. For the single scalar, we show that large-amplitude oscillon configurations emerge spontaneously and persist to contribute about 1.2% of the energy density of the Universe. We also show that for a range of parameters, oscillon lifetimes are enhanced by the expansion and that this effect is a result of parametric resonance. For the SU(2) case, …

Detection Of Co And Dust Emission In Near-Infrared Spectra Of Sn 1998s, Christopher L. Gerardy, Robert A. Fesen, Peter Höflich, J. Craig Wheeler

Dartmouth Scholarship

Near-infrared spectra (0.95 – 2.4 μ m) of the peculiar Type IIn supernova 1998S in NGC 3877 from 95 to 355 days after maximum light are presented. K -band data taken at days 95 and 225 show the presence of the first overtone of CO emission near 2.3 μ m, which is gone by day 355. An apparent extended blue wing on the CO profile in the day 95 spectrum could indicate a large CO expansion velocity (≈ 2000 – 3000 km s − 1). This is the third detection of infrared CO emission in nearly as many Type II …