37 citations · 90 across the 14 of their papers we have counts for
14 papers
Spectator Axions in String Inflation and Primordial Black Holes
Michele Cicoli, Dario L. Lorenzoni, Evan McDonough +1
We study the impact of light spectator axions on the seeding of primordial black holes (PBHs) during inflation in string theory. Primordial black holes exhibit unique and novel phe…
Nonthermal leptogenesis via cosmological gravitational particle production is tested by inflationary gravitational waves
Tammi Chowdhury, Leah Jenks, Edward W. Kolb +2
We explore the coincidence of scales between cosmic inflation and right-handed neutrinos in seesaw models. We show that inflation models, which will be tested by next-generation CM…
Creation of spin-3/2 dark matter via cosmological gravitational particle production
Edward W. Kolb, Andrew J. Long, Evan McDonough +1
We study the cosmological gravitational particle production (CGPP) of spin-3/2 particles during and after cosmic inflation, and map the parameter space that can realize the observe…
Higgs Inflation: Particle Factory
Tammi Chowdhury, Leah Jenks, Edward W. Kolb +1
We study cosmological gravitational particle production (CGPP) in Higgs inflation, wherein the inflaton is a scalar field with quartic self-coupling and a nonminimal coupling t…
Superheavy Dark Matter from the String Theory Axiverse
Siyang Ling, Andrew J. Long, Evan McDonough +1
We propose heavy axions as a natural superheavy dark matter candidate in string theory, with the relic density of dark matter originating in quantum fluctuations during cosmic infl…
Wave Interference in Self-Interacting Fuzzy Dark Matter
Christian Capanelli, Wayne Hu, Evan McDonough
In the Fuzzy Dark Matter (FDM) scenario, the dark matter is composed of an ultra-light scalar field with coherence length and wave interference on astrophysical scales. Scalar fiel…
Do Observations Prefer Thawing Quintessence?
Guillaume Payeur, Evan McDonough, Robert Brandenberger
In light of recent observations by the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), we study evidence for thawing quintessence over a cosmological constant as dark energy, with emp…
Natural Inflation with Exponentially Small Tensor-To-Scalar Ratio
Dario L. Lorenzoni, David I. Kaiser, Evan McDonough
We demonstrate that "natural inflation", also known as "axion inflation", can be compatible with Planck 2018 measurements of the cosmic microwave background, while predicting an ex…
Gravitational Production of Completely Dark Photons with Nonminimal Couplings to Gravity
Christian Capanelli, Leah Jenks, Edward W. Kolb +1
Dark photons are a theorized massive spin-1 particle which can be produced via various mechanisms, including cosmological gravitational particle production (GPP) in the early unive…
Swampland Conjectures Constraints on Dark Energy from a Highly Curved Field Space
Guillaume Payeur, Evan McDonough, Robert Brandenberger
We study the interplay of the trans-Planckian censorship conjecture (TCC) and the swampland distance conjecture (SDC) in the context of multifield dark energy in a curved field spa…
The Field Theory Axiverse
Stephon Alexander, Tucker Manton, Evan McDonough
Axion and axion-like particles (ALPs) are a prominent candidate for physics beyond the Standard Model, and can play an important role in cosmology, serving as dark matter or dark e…
Runaway Gravitational Production of Dark Photons
Christian Capanelli, Leah Jenks, Edward W. Kolb +1
We demonstrate that gravitational particle production (GPP) of a massive, Abelian, vector (Proca) field during inflation in the presence of nonminimal coupling to gravity may suffe…
Observational constraints on early dark energy
Evan McDonough, J. Colin Hill, Mikhail M. Ivanov +2
We review and update constraints on the Early Dark Energy (EDE) model from cosmological data sets, in particular Planck PR3 and PR4 cosmic microwave background (CMB) data and large…
Cosmological Implications of Kalb-Ramond-Like-Particles
Christian Capanelli, Leah Jenks, Edward W. Kolb +1
The Kalb-Ramond field is an antisymmetric, rank-two tensor field which most notably appears in the context of string theory, but has largely been unexplored in the context of cosmo…