Marco Peloso

Research Summary

[ Cosmology, Early Universe and General Relativity ]

The research activities of Marco Peloso are focused on the interplay between elementary particle physics and cosmology.

Research Projects:
(September 2002 - August 2003)

Survival of super-GZK photons

Together with C. Csaki (Cornell U., LNS), N. Kaloper (UC, Davis), and J. Terning (Los Alamos), Peloso discussed a new mechanism for the survival of super-GZK photons produced in faraway sources. The mechanism is based on the mixing of the photons with light axions in extragalactic magnetic fields: photons convert into axions, which are sufficiently weakly coupled to travel large distances unimpeded; these axions then convert back into high energy photons close to the Earth.

Study of low CMB power on large scales

Together with Contaldi (CITA), Kofman (CITA), and Linde (Stanford U., Phys. Dept.) Peloso addressed the problem of the CMB low anisotropy power at large angular scales observed both by WMAP and COBE DMR. After discussing the statistical significance (over cosmic variance) of this effect, he focused on possible physical explanations related to the physics of inflation or to the late time evolution of the universe.

Origin of the acceleration of the universe

Together with E. Poppitz (Toronto U.) Peloso discussed the possibility that the present acceleration of the universe is driven by the evolution of shape moduli in sub-millimeter extra dimensional scenarios. The potential for the moduli is protected from destabilizing corrections (the main problem in models of quintessence) by locality and diffeomorphism invariance of the higher dimensional theory.

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