Strong limits on the possible decay of the vacuum energy into CDM or CMB photons

AUTOR(ES)

Opher, Reuven, Pelinson, Ana

FONTE

Brazilian Journal of Physics

DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2005-12

RESUMO

We investigate models that suggest that the vacuum energy could decay into cold dark matter (CDM) or into a homogeneous distribution of thermalized cosmic microwave background (CMB) photons. We show that the agreement of the density fluctuation spectra obtained from the CMB and galaxy distribution data puts strong limits on the rate of vacuum energy decay. A vacuum energy decaying into CDM increases the density of the CDM rho, diluting the CDM density fluctuations (dr/rho)². The temperature fluctuations of the CMB photons (deltaT/T)² are approximately proportional to (dr/rho)², at the recombination epoch. We define F as the predicted increase of (dr/rho)² (or (deltaT/T)²) at the recombination epoch. Since the present observed (dr/rho)² derived from the CMB and galaxy distribution data agree to ~ 10%, the maximum value for F is Fmax @ 1.1. Our results indicate that the rate of decay of the vacuum energy into CDM or CMB photons is extremely small.

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