Constraining pre-big-bang nucleosynthesis expansion using cosmic antiprotons

Journal Article · Sun Oct 15 00:00:00 EDT 2006 · Physical Review. D, Particles Fields

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVD.74.083505· OSTI ID:20871375

Schelke, Mia; Catena, Riccardo; Fornengo, Nicolao; Masiero, Antonio; Pietroni, Massimo ^[1]; Deutsches Elektronen-Syncrotron DESY, 22603 Hamburg ^[2]

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1. Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Torino, via P. Giuria 1, I-10125 Turin (Italy)
2. Germany

A host of dark energy models and nonstandard cosmologies predict an enhanced Hubble rate in the early Universe: perfectly viable models, which satisfy big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN), cosmic microwave background and general relativity tests, may nevertheless lead to enhancements of the Hubble rate up to many orders of magnitude. In this paper we show that strong bounds on the pre-BBN evolution of the Universe may be derived, under the assumption that dark matter is a thermal relic, by combining the dark matter relic density bound with constraints coming from the production of cosmic-ray antiprotons by dark matter annihilation in the Galaxy. The limits we derive apply to the Hubble rate around the temperature of dark matter decoupling. For dark matter masses lighter than 100 GeV, the bound on the Hubble rate enhancement ranges from a factor of a few to a factor of 30, depending on the actual cosmological model, while for a mass of 500 GeV the bound falls in the range 50-500. Uncertainties in the derivation of the bounds and situations where the bounds become looser are discussed. We finally discuss how these limits apply to some specific realizations of nonstandard cosmologies: a scalar-tensor gravity model, kination models and a Randall-Sundrum D-brane model.

• OSTI ID: 20871375
• Journal Information: Physical Review. D, Particles Fields, Vol. 74, Issue 8; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.74.083505; (c) 2006 The American Physical Society; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0556-2821
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
ANNIHILATION
ANTIPROTONS
COSMIC RADIATION
COSMOLOGICAL MODELS
COSMOLOGY
DECOUPLING
GALAXIES
GENERAL RELATIVITY THEORY
GEV RANGE
GRAVITATION
MEMBRANES
NONLUMINOUS MATTER
NUCLEOSYNTHESIS
RADIOWAVE RADIATION
RELICT RADIATION
REST MASS
SCALARS
TENSORS
UNIVERSE