Holography and Variable Cosmological Constant

An effective local quantum field theory with UV and IR cutoffs correlated in accordance with holographic entropy bounds is capable of rendering the cosmological constant (CC) stable against quantum corrections. By setting an IR cutoff to length scales relevant to cosmology, one easily obtains the currently observed rho_Lambda ~ 10^{-47} GeV^4, thus alleviating the CC problem. It is argued that scaling behavior of the CC in these scenarios implies an interaction of the CC with matter sector or a time-dependent gravitational constant, to accommodate the observational data.Comment: 7 pages, final version accepted by PR

Thermodynamics of viscous dark energy in an RSII braneworld

We show that for an RSII braneworld filled with interacting viscous dark energy and dark matter, one can always rewrite the Friedmann equation in the form of the first law of thermodynamics, $dE=T_hdS_h+WdV$, at apparent horizon. In addition, the generalized second law of thermodynamics can fulfilled in a region enclosed by the apparent horizon on the brane for both constant and time variable 5-dynamical Newton's constant $G_5$. These results hold regardless of the specific form of the dark energy. Our study further support that in an accelerating universe with spatial curvature, the apparent horizon is a physical boundary from the thermodynamical point of view.Comment: 11 page

Onecut-dependent Nkx6.2 transcription factor expression is required for proper formation and activity of spinal locomotor circuits.

In the developing spinal cord, Onecut transcription factors control the diversification of motor neurons into distinct neuronal subsets by ensuring the maintenance of Isl1 expression during differentiation. However, other genes downstream of the Onecut proteins and involved in motor neuron diversification have remained unidentified. In the present study, we generated conditional mutant embryos carrying specific inactivation of Onecut genes in the developing motor neurons, performed RNA-sequencing to identify factors downstream of Onecut proteins in this neuron population, and employed additional transgenic mouse models to assess the role of one specific Onecut-downstream target, the transcription factor Nkx6.2. Nkx6.2 expression was up-regulated in Onecut-deficient motor neurons, but strongly downregulated in Onecut-deficient V2a interneurons, indicating an opposite regulation of Nkx6.2 by Onecut factors in distinct spinal neuron populations. Nkx6.2-null embryos, neonates and adult mice exhibited alterations of locomotor pattern and spinal locomotor network activity, likely resulting from defective survival of a subset of limb-innervating motor neurons and abnormal migration of V2a interneurons. Taken together, our results indicate that Nkx6.2 regulates the development of spinal neuronal populations and the formation of the spinal locomotor circuits downstream of the Onecut transcription factors

Resummed Quantum Gravity

We present the current status of the a new approach to quantum general relativity based on the exact resummation of its perturbative series as that series was formulated by Feynman. We show that the resummed theory is UV finite and we present some phenomenological applications as well.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure; presented at ICHEP0

The Running of the Cosmological and the Newton Constant controlled by the Cosmological Event Horizon

We study the renormalisation group running of the cosmological and the Newton constant, where the renormalisation scale is given by the inverse of the radius of the cosmological event horizon. In this framework, we discuss the future evolution of the universe, where we find stable de Sitter solutions, but also "big crunch"-like and "big rip"-like events, depending on the choice of the parameters in the model.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figures, minor improvements, references adde

Dynamically avoiding fine-tuning the cosmological constant: the "Relaxed Universe"

We demonstrate that there exists a large class of action functionals of the scalar curvature and of the Gauss-Bonnet invariant which are able to relax dynamically a large cosmological constant (CC), whatever it be its starting value in the early universe. Hence, it is possible to understand, without fine-tuning, the very small current value of the CC as compared to its theoretically expected large value in quantum field theory and string theory. In our framework, this relaxation appears as a pure gravitational effect, where no ad hoc scalar fields are needed. The action involves a positive power of a characteristic mass parameter, M, whose value can be, interestingly enough, of the order of a typical particle physics mass of the Standard Model of the strong and electroweak interactions or extensions thereof, including the neutrino mass. The model universe emerging from this scenario (the "Relaxed Universe") falls within the class of the so-called LXCDM models of the cosmic evolution. Therefore, there is a "cosmon" entity X (represented by an effective object, not a field), which in this case is generated by the effective functional and is responsible for the dynamical adjustment of the cosmological constant. This model universe successfully mimics the essential past epochs of the standard (or "concordance") cosmological model (LCDM). Furthermore, it provides interesting clues to the coincidence problem and it may even connect naturally with primordial inflation.Comment: LaTeX, 63 pp, 8 figures. Extended discussion. Version accepted in JCA

Cross-sectional associations between sleep duration, sedentary time, physical activity, and adiposity indicators among Canadian preschool-aged children using compositional analyses

Abstract Background Sleep duration, sedentary behaviour, and physical activity are three co-dependent behaviours that fall on the movement/non-movement intensity continuum. Compositional data analyses provide an appropriate method for analyzing the association between co-dependent movement behaviour data and health indicators. The objectives of this study were to examine: (1) the combined associations of the composition of time spent in sleep, sedentary behaviour, light-intensity physical activity (LPA), and moderate- to vigorous-intensity physical activity (MVPA) with adiposity indicators; and (2) the association of the time spent in sleep, sedentary behaviour, LPA, or MVPA with adiposity indicators relative to the time spent in the other behaviours in a representative sample of Canadian preschool-aged children. Methods Participants were 552 children aged 3 to 4 years from cycles 2 and 3 of the Canadian Health Measures Survey. Sedentary time, LPA, and MVPA were measured with Actical accelerometers (Philips Respironics, Bend, OR USA), and sleep duration was parental reported. Adiposity indicators included waist circumference (WC) and body mass index (BMI) z-scores based on World Health Organization growth standards. Compositional data analyses were used to examine the cross-sectional associations. Results The composition of movement behaviours was significantly associated with BMI z-scores (p = 0.006) but not with WC (p = 0.718). Further, the time spent in sleep (BMI z-score: γ sleep  = −0.72; p = 0.138; WC: γ sleep  = −1.95; p = 0.285), sedentary behaviour (BMI z-score: γ SB  = 0.19; p = 0.624; WC: γ SB  = 0.87; p = 0.614), LPA (BMI z-score: γ LPA  = 0.62; p = 0.213, WC: γ LPA  = 0.23; p = 0.902), or MVPA (BMI z-score: γ MVPA  = −0.09; p = 0.733, WC: γ MVPA  = 0.08; p = 0.288) relative to the other behaviours was not significantly associated with the adiposity indicators. Conclusions This study is the first to use compositional analyses when examining associations of co-dependent sleep duration, sedentary time, and physical activity behaviours with adiposity indicators in preschool-aged children. The overall composition of movement behaviours appears important for healthy BMI z-scores in preschool-aged children. Future research is needed to determine the optimal movement behaviour composition that should be promoted in this age group

Scalar-Tensor Models of Normal and Phantom Dark Energy

We consider the viability of dark energy (DE) models in the framework of the scalar-tensor theory of gravity, including the possibility to have a phantom DE at small redshifts $z$ as admitted by supernova luminosity-distance data. For small $z$, the generic solution for these models is constructed in the form of a power series in $z$ without any approximation. Necessary constraints for DE to be phantom today and to cross the phantom divide line $p=-\rho$ at small $z$ are presented. Considering the Solar System constraints, we find for the post-Newtonian parameters that $\gamma_{PN}<1$ and $\gamma_{PN,0}\approx 1$ for the model to be viable, and $\beta_{PN,0}>1$ (but very close to 1) if the model has a significantly phantom DE today. However, prospects to establish the phantom behaviour of DE are much better with cosmological data than with Solar System experiments. Earlier obtained results for a $\Lambda$-dominated universe with the vanishing scalar field potential are extended to a more general DE equation of state confirming that the cosmological evolution of these models rule them out. Models of currently fantom DE which are viable for small $z$ can be easily constructed with a constant potential; however, they generically become singular at some higher $z$. With a growing potential, viable models exist up to an arbitrary high redshift.Comment: 30 pages, 4 figures; Matches the published version containing an expanded discussion of various point

Hubble expansion and structure formation in the "running FLRW model" of the cosmic evolution

A new class of FLRW cosmological models with time-evolving fundamental parameters should emerge naturally from a description of the expansion of the universe based on the first principles of quantum field theory and string theory. Within this general paradigm, one expects that both the gravitational Newton's coupling, G, and the cosmological term, Lambda, should not be strictly constant but appear rather as smooth functions of the Hubble rate. This scenario ("running FLRW model") predicts, in a natural way, the existence of dynamical dark energy without invoking the participation of extraneous scalar fields. In this paper, we perform a detailed study of these models in the light of the latest cosmological data, which serves to illustrate the phenomenological viability of the new dark energy paradigm as a serious alternative to the traditional scalar field approaches. By performing a joint likelihood analysis of the recent SNIa data, the CMB shift parameter, and the BAOs traced by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, we put tight constraints on the main cosmological parameters. Furthermore, we derive the theoretically predicted dark-matter halo mass function and the corresponding redshift distribution of cluster-size halos for the "running" models studied. Despite the fact that these models closely reproduce the standard LCDM Hubble expansion, their normalization of the perturbation's power-spectrum varies, imposing, in many cases, a significantly different cluster-size halo redshift distribution. This fact indicates that it should be relatively easy to distinguish between the "running" models and the LCDM cosmology using realistic future X-ray and Sunyaev-Zeldovich cluster surveys.Comment: Version published in JCAP 08 (2011) 007: 1+41 pages, 6 Figures, 1 Table. Typos corrected. Extended discussion on the computation of the linearly extrapolated density threshold above which structures collapse in time-varying vacuum models. One appendix, a few references and one figure adde

Dark Energy and Gravity

I review the problem of dark energy focusing on the cosmological constant as the candidate and discuss its implications for the nature of gravity. Part 1 briefly overviews the currently popular `concordance cosmology' and summarises the evidence for dark energy. It also provides the observational and theoretical arguments in favour of the cosmological constant as the candidate and emphasises why no other approach really solves the conceptual problems usually attributed to the cosmological constant. Part 2 describes some of the approaches to understand the nature of the cosmological constant and attempts to extract the key ingredients which must be present in any viable solution. I argue that (i)the cosmological constant problem cannot be satisfactorily solved until gravitational action is made invariant under the shift of the matter lagrangian by a constant and (ii) this cannot happen if the metric is the dynamical variable. Hence the cosmological constant problem essentially has to do with our (mis)understanding of the nature of gravity. Part 3 discusses an alternative perspective on gravity in which the action is explicitly invariant under the above transformation. Extremizing this action leads to an equation determining the background geometry which gives Einstein's theory at the lowest order with Lanczos-Lovelock type corrections. (Condensed abstract).Comment: Invited Review for a special Gen.Rel.Grav. issue on Dark Energy, edited by G.F.R.Ellis, R.Maartens and H.Nicolai; revtex; 22 pages; 2 figure