Properties of cosmic voids in dark energy simulations

The last decade has witnessed the establishment of a Standard Cosmological Model, which is based on two fundamental assumptions: the first one is the existence of a new non relativistic kind of particles, i. e. the Dark Matter (DM) that provides the potential wells in which structures create, while the second one is presence of the Dark Energy (DE), the simplest form of which is represented by the Cosmological Constant Λ, that sources the acceleration in the expansion of our Universe. These two features are summarized by the acronym ΛCDM, which is an abbreviation used to refer to the present Standard Cosmological Model. Although the Standard Cosmological Model shows a remarkably successful agreement with most of the available observations, it presents some longstanding unsolved problems. A possible way to solve these problems is represented by the introduction of a dynamical Dark Energy, in the form of the scalar field ϕ. In the coupled DE models, the scalar field ϕ features a direct interaction with matter in different regimes. Cosmic voids are large under-dense regions in the Universe devoided of matter. Being nearby empty of matter their dynamics is supposed to be dominated by DE, to the nature of which the properties of cosmic voids should be very sensitive. This thesis work is devoted to the statistical and geometrical analysis of cosmic voids in large N-body simulations of structure formation in the context of alternative competing cosmological models. In particular we used the ZOBOV code (see ref. Neyrinck 2008), a publicly available void finder algorithm, to identify voids in the Halos catalogues extraxted from CoDECS simulations (see ref. Baldi 2012 ). The CoDECS are the largest N-body simulations to date of interacting Dark Energy (DE) models. We identify suitable criteria to produce voids catalogues with the aim of comparing the properties of these objects in interacting DE scenarios to the standard ΛCDM model, at different redshifts. This thesis work is organized as follows: in chapter 1, the Standard Cosmological Model as well as the main properties of cosmic voids are intro- duced. In chapter 2, we will present the scalar field scenario. In chapter 3 the tools, the methods and the criteria by which a voids catalogue is created are described while in chapter 4 we discuss the statistical properties of cosmic voids included in our catalogues. In chapter 5 the geometrical properties of the catalogued cosmic voids are presented by means of their stacked profiles. In chapter 6 we summarized our results and we propose further developments of this work.

String inflationary models with non-monotonic slow-roll and detectable tensor modes

The first chapter of this work has the aim to provide a brief overview of the history of our Universe, in the context of string theory and considering inflation as its possible application to cosmological problems. We then discuss type IIB string compactifications, introducing the study of the inflaton, a scalar field candidated to describe the inflation theory. The Large Volume Scenario (LVS) is studied in the second chapter paying particular attention to the stabilisation of the Kähler moduli which are four-dimensional gravitationally coupled scalar fields which parameterise the size of the extra dimensions. Moduli stabilisation is the process through which these particles acquire a mass and can become promising inflaton candidates. The third chapter is devoted to the study of Fibre Inflation which is an interesting inflationary model derived within the context of LVS compactifications. The fourth chapter tries to extend the zone of slow-roll of the scalar potential by taking larger values of the field φ. Everything is done with the purpose of studying in detail deviations of the cosmological observables, which can better reproduce current experimental data. Finally, we present a slight modification of Fibre Inflation based on a different compactification manifold. This new model produces larger tensor modes with a spectral index in good agreement with the date released in February 2015 by the Planck satellite.

Alternative derivative expansion in Functional RG and application

We give a brief review of the Functional Renormalization method in quantum field theory, which is intrinsically non perturbative, in terms of both the Polchinski equation for the Wilsonian action and the Wetterich equation for the generator of the proper verteces. For the latter case we show a simple application for a theory with one real scalar field within the LPA and LPA' approximations. For the first case, instead, we give a covariant "Hamiltonian" version of the Polchinski equation which consists in doing a Legendre transform of the flow for the corresponding effective Lagrangian replacing arbitrary high order derivative of fields with momenta fields. This approach is suitable for studying new truncations in the derivative expansion. We apply this formulation for a theory with one real scalar field and, as a novel result, derive the flow equations for a theory with N real scalar fields with the O(N) internal symmetry. Within this new approach we analyze numerically the scaling solutions for N=1 in d=3 (critical Ising model), at the leading order in the derivative expansion with an infinite number of couplings, encoded in two functions V(phi) and Z(phi), obtaining an estimate for the quantum anomalous dimension with a 10% accuracy (confronting with Monte Carlo results).