Khoury, Justin
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Publication Mach's Holographic Principle(2009-10-06) Khoury, Justin; Parikh, MaulikMach’s principle is the proposition that inertial frames are determined by matter. We put forth and implement a precise correspondence between matter and geometry that realizes Mach’s principle. Einstein’s equations are not modified and no selection principle is applied to their solutions; Mach’s principle is realized wholly within Einstein’s general theory of relativity. The key insight is the observation that, in addition to bulk matter, one can also add boundary matter. Given a space-time, and thus the inertial frames, we can read off both boundary and bulk stress tensors, thereby relating matter and geometry. We consider some global conditions that are necessary for the space-time to be reconstructible, in principle, from bulk and boundary matter. Our framework is similar to that of the black hole membrane paradigm and, in asymptotically anti-de Sitter space-times, is consistent with holographic duality.Publication Supersymmetric Galileons(2011-08-15) Khoury, Justin; Ovrut, Burt A.; Lehners, Jean-LucGalileon theories are of considerable interest since they allow for stable violations of the null energy condition. Since such violations could have occurred during a high-energy regime in the history of our Universe, we are motivated to study supersymmetric extensions of these theories. This is carried out in this paper, where we construct generic classes of N=1 supersymmetric Galileon Lagrangians. They are shown to admit nonequivalent stress-energy tensors and, hence, vacua manifesting differing conditions for violating the null energy condition. The temporal and spatial fluctuations of all component fields of the supermultiplet are analyzed and shown to be stable on a large number of such backgrounds. In the process, we uncover a surprising connection between conformal Galileon and ghost-condensate theories, allowing for a deeper understanding of both types of theories.Publication New Ekpyrotic Cosmology(2007-12-07) Khoury, Justin; Buchbinder, Evgeny I.; Ovrut, Burt A.In this paper, we present a new scenario of the early universe that contains a pre-big bang ekpyrotic phase. By combining this with a ghost condensate, the theory explicitly violates the null energy condition without developing any ghostlike instabilities. Thus the contracting universe goes through a nonsingular bounce and evolves smoothly into the expanding post-big bang phase. The curvature perturbation acquires a scale-invariant spectrum well before the bounce in this scenario. It is sourced by the scale-invariant entropy perturbation engendered by two ekpyrotic scalar fields, a mechanism recently proposed by Lehners et al. Since the background geometry is nonsingular at all times, the curvature perturbation remains nearly constant on superhorizon scales. It emerges from the bounce unscathed and imprints a scale-invariant spectrum of density fluctuations in the matter-radiation fluid at the onset of the hot big bang phase. The ekpyrotic potential can be chosen so that the spectrum has a red tilt, in accordance with the recent data from WMAP. As in the original ekpyrotic scenario, the model predicts a negligible gravity wave signal on all observable scales. As such ‘‘new ekpyrotic cosmology’’ provides a consistent and distinguishable alternative to inflation to account for the origin of the seeds of large-scale structure.Publication Spatially Covariant Theories of a Transverse, Traceless Graviton: Formalism(2012-04-02) Khoury, Justin; Miller, Godfrey E. J.; Tolley, Andrew J.General relativity is a generally covariant, locally Lorentz covariant theory of two transverse, traceless graviton degrees of freedom. According to a theorem of Hojman, Kucharˇ, and Teitelboim, modifications of general relativity must either introduce new degrees of freedom or violate the principle of local Lorentz covariance. In this paper, we explore modifications of general relativity that retain the same graviton degrees of freedom, and therefore explicitly break Lorentz covariance. Motivated by cosmology, the modifications of interest maintain explicit spatial covariance. In spatially covariant theories of the graviton, the physical Hamiltonian density obeys an analogue of the renormalization group equation which encodes invariance under flow through the space of conformally equivalent spatial metrics. This paper is dedicated to setting up the formalism of our approach and applying it to a realistic class of theories. Forthcoming work will apply the formalism more generally.Publication Scale Invariance via a Phase of Slow Expansion(2011-07-11) Joyce, Austin; Khoury, JustinWe consider a cosmological scenario in which a scale-invariant spectrum of curvature perturbations is generated by a rapidly evolving equation of state on a slowly expanding background. This scenario generalizes the ‘‘adiabatic ekpyrotic’’ mechanism proposed recently by Khoury and Steinhardt [Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 091301 (2010)]. Whereas the original proposal assumed a slowly contracting background, the present work shows that the mechanism works equally well on an expanding background. This greatly expands the realm of broader cosmological scenarios in which this mechanism can be embedded. We present a phase space analysis and show that both the expanding and contracting versions of the scenario are dynamical attractors, with the expanding branch having a broader basin of attraction. In both cases, a finite range of scale-invariant modes can be generated within the regime of validity of perturbation theory.Publication Non-Gaussianities in New Ekpyrotic Cosmology(2008-05-02) Khoury, Justin; Buchbinder, Evgeny I.; Ovrut, Burt A.The new ekpyrotic model is an alternative scenario of the early Universe which relies on a phase of slow contraction before the big bang. We calculate the 3-point and 4-point correlation functions of primordial density perturbations and find a generically large non-Gaussian signal, just below the current sensitivity level of cosmic microwave background experiments. This is in contrast with slow-roll inflation, which predicts negligible non-Gaussianity. The model is also distinguishable from alternative inflationary scenarios that can yield large non-Gaussianity, such as Dirac-Born-Infeld inflation and the simplest curvatonlike models, through the shape dependence of the correlation functions. Non-Gaussianity therefore provides a distinguishing and testable prediction of New Ekpyrotic Cosmology.Publication Flat 3-brane with Tension in Cascading Gravity(2009-10-15) Rham, Claudia de; Khoury, Justin; Tolley, AndrewIn the cascading gravity brane-world scenario, our 3-brane lies within a succession of lower codimension branes, each with their own induced gravity term, embedded into each other in a higher dimensional space-time. In the (6 + 1)-dimensional version of this scenario, we show that a 3-brane with tension remains flat, at least for sufficiently small tension that the weak-field approximation is valid. The bulk solution is singular nowhere and remains in the perturbative regime everywhere.Publication N-body simulations of DGP and degravitation theories(2009-09-17) Khoury, Justin; Wyman, MarkWe perform N-body simulations of theories with infinite-volume extra dimensions, such as the Dvali- Gabadadze-Porrati model and its higher-dimensional generalizations, where 4D gravity is mediated by massive gravitons. The longitudinal mode of these gravitons mediates an extra scalar force, which we model as a density-dependent modification to the Poisson equation. This enhances gravitational clustering, particularly on scales that have undergone mild nonlinear processing. While the standard nonlinear fitting algorithm of Smith et al. overestimates this power enhancement on nonlinear scales, we present a modified fitting formula that offers a remarkably good fit to our power spectra. Because of the uncertainty in galaxy bias, our results are consistent with precision power spectrum determinations from galaxy redshift surveys, even for graviton Compton wavelengths as small as 300 Mpc. Our model is sufficiently general that we expect it to capture the phenomenology of a wide class of related higher-dimensional gravity scenarios.Publication Enhanced Peculiar Velocities in Brane-induced Gravity(2010-08-17) Wyman, Mark; Khoury, JustinThe mounting evidence for anomalously large peculiar velocities in our Universe presents a challenge for the ΛCDM paradigm. The recent estimates of the large-scale bulk flow by Watkins et al. are inconsistent at the nearly 3σ level with ΛCDM predictions. Meanwhile, Lee and Komatsu have recently estimated that the occurrence of high-velocity merging systems such as the bullet cluster (1E0657-57) is unlikely at a 6:5–5:8σ level, with an estimated probability between 3:3 × 10-11 and 3:6 × 10-9 in ΛCDM cosmology. We show that these anomalies are alleviated in a broad class of infrared-modifed gravity theories, called brane-induced gravity, in which gravity becomes higher-dimensional at ultralarge distances. These theories include additional scalar forces that enhance gravitational attraction and therefore speed up structure formation at late times and on sufficiently large scales. The peculiar velocities are enhanced by 24–34% compared to standard gravity, with the maximal enhancement nearly consistent at the 2σ level with bulk flow observations. The occurrence of the bullet cluster in these theories is ≈ 104 times more probable than in ΛCDM cosmology.Publication Quantum Stability of Chameleon Field Theories(2012-07-23) Upadhye, Amol; Hu, Wayne; Khoury, JustinChameleon scalar fields are dark-energy candidates which suppress fifth forces in high density regions of the Universe by becoming massive. We consider chameleon models as effective field theories and estimate quantum corrections to their potentials. Requiring that quantum corrections be small, so as to allow reliable predictions of fifth forces, leads to an upper bound m < 0.0073 (ρ /10 g cm -3) 1/3 eV for gravitational-strength coupling whereas fifth force experiments place a lower bound of m>0.0042 eV. An improvement of less than a factor of two in the range of fifth force experiments could test all classical chameleon field theories whose quantum corrections are well controlled and couple to matter with nearly gravitational strength regardless of the specific form of the chameleon potential.