It is shown in three examples that future cosmological data may allow
us to constrain fundamental physics in interesting ways.
The first example illustrates that correlations in the polarization of the cosmic
microwave background may allow us to put the strongest limit yet on the mass
of a particle, the graviton, at a level of m . 10−30 eV.
In the second example, it is shown that observations of the correlations of temperature
anisotropies and polarization of the cosmic microwave background
may reveal hints for the realization of a class of string theoretic inflationary
models that go by the name of axion monodromy inflation, or, rule them out.
If the evidence for inflation strengthens substantially, just the requirement that
inflation occurred may be used to constrain models of fundamental physics.
The third example shows that a class of string compactifications that are commonly
used in the context of string phenomenology cannot support inflation
and might thus be ruled out by cosmology.
For completeness, a review of the physics underlying the cosmic microwave
background radiation is included and some analytical results for the signatures
of primordial gravitational waves in the cosmic microwave background
are given. / text
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UTEXAS/oai:repositories.lib.utexas.edu:2152/6877 |
| Date | 04 February 2010 |
| Creators | Flauger, Raphael Manfred |
| Source Sets | University of Texas |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Format | electronic |
| Rights | Copyright is held by the author. Presentation of this material on the Libraries' web site by University Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin was made possible under a limited license grant from the author who has retained all copyrights in the works. |
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