Daniel Boyanovsky

  • Professor
208 Allen Hall
(412) 624-9037

Research

The last two decades have been an exhilarating journey of discovery in Cosmology and Particle Physics. Our understanding of the early and present Universe has been revolutionized by the confirmation that seeds of quantum mechanical origin are ultimately responsible for the formation of galaxies and the experimental validation of the theory of strong and electroweak interactions culminating in two Standards Models: the concordance LambdaCDM and the Standard Model of Particle Physics. These discoveries also open the window to new challenges: 95% of the energy density in the Universe is in the form of Dark Matter and Dark Energy and neutrinos have masses and mix. These phenomena usher in a new era ripe for discovery leading to an unprecedented convergence of particle physics, astrophysics and cosmology to explore physics beyond the Standard Models. Neutrino oscillations offer a fascinating example of macroscopic quantum coherence and new species of neutrinos just beginning to be explored, may be a particle physics candidate for Dark Matter that could solve some  potential outstanding problems of the LambdaCDM paradigm on galactic scales. Novel quantum aspects during the inflationary stage in the early Universe may hold clues to the mystery of Dark Energy.  My research program is truly interdisciplinary merging together not only cosmology and particle physics but also statistical and many body physics including methods and concepts from quantum optics, to study early Universe inflationary cosmology, the physics of quantum coherence in neutrino oscillations and sterile neutrinos as possible Dark Matter candidates.

Selected Publications

  • "Short baseline neutrino oscillations: when entanglement suppresses coherence " (D. Boyanovsky), Physical Review D 84, 065001 (2011) ,  arXiv:1106.6248.
  • "On the Perturbative Stability of Quantum Field Theories in de Sitter Space " (D. Boyanovsky, R. Holman), JHEP,Volume 2011, Number 5, 47,  arXiv:1103.4648.
  • "Small scale aspects of warm dark matter : power spectra and acoustic oscillations" (D. Boyanovsky, J. Wu),  Physical Review D83:043524,(2011) ,  arXiv:1008.0992.
  • ''Dynamics of disentanglement, density matrix and coherence in neutrino oscillation'', (J. Wu, D. Boyanovsky, R. Holman, J. Hutasoit), Phys. Rev.D82:013006,2010, arXiv:1005.3260.
  • ''The Effective Theory of Inflation in the Standard Model of the Universe and the CMB+LSS data analysis'' (Review Article),  Int.J.Mod.Phys.A24:3669-3864,2009,  arXiv:0901.0549.
  • ''Clustering properties of a sterile neutrino dark matter candidate'' (D. Boyanovsky), Physical Review D 78:103505 (2008)  arXiv:0807.0646
  • ''Constraints on dark matter particles from theory, galaxy observations and N-body simulations'', Phys.Rev.D77:043518 (2008)  arXiv:0710.5180
  • "Phase transitions in the early and the present Universe " (Review Article) (D. Boyanovsky, H. J. de Vega, D. Schwarz), Ann.Rev.Nucl.Part.Sci.56:441-500,(2006)  arXiv:hep-ph/0602002.