Document Type

Poster

Publication Date

Summer 2025

Abstract

Cosmology is the study of the structure and origin of the Universe, treating it as a dynamical system. Under this assumption, we are able to model the Universe on large scales, as well as study its early history, and compare it to predictions given by the Standard Model. After cosmic inflation, there may have been a period of the early Universe in which moduli fields –light scalar fields– dominate the energy density of the Universe. However, for Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN) to occur, these fields must have decayed quickly so that the Universe is radiation dominated... This is the so-called cosmological moduli problem. We model the modulus field (ϕ) as it’s coupled to the rest of the Universe through time using GABE (Grid and Bubble Evolver) and Mathematica, and track whether the modulus field fragments. These inhomogeneities would cause the modulus field to become unstable and decay through self resonance. We found that, for naïve models, the field remained homogeneous, resulting in an extended matter dominated Universe, causing the disruption of BBN. This leaves much room to study the role moduli fields play in late universe particle physics, and how they contribute to the period between inflation and BBN.

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Rights Statement

In Copyright - Non-Commercial Use Permitted