Karol Kampf, Jiri Novotny, Mikhail Shifman, Jaroslav Trnka

In this letter we discuss new soft theorems for the Goldstone boson amplitudes with non-vanishing soft limits. The standard argument is that the non-linearly realized shift symmetry leads to the vanishing of scattering amplitudes in the soft limit, known as the Alder zero. This statement involves certain assumptions of the absence of cubic vertices and the absence of linear terms in the transformations of fields. For theories which fail to satisfy these conditions, we derive a new soft theorem which involves certain linear combinations of lower point amplitudes, generalizing the Adler zero statement. We provide an explicit example of $SU(N)/SU(N-1)$ sigma model which was also recently studied in the context of $U(1)$ fibrated models. The soft theorem can be then used as an input into the modified soft recursion relations for the reconstruction of all tree-level amplitudes.

James Bonifacio, Kurt Hinterbichler

We study the perturbative unitarity of scattering amplitudes in general dimensional reductions of Yang-Mills theories and general relativity on closed internal manifolds. For the tree amplitudes of the dimensionally reduced theory to have the expected high-energy behavior of the higher-dimensional theory, the masses and cubic couplings of the Kaluza-Klein states must satisfy certain sum rules that ensure there are nontrivial cancellations between Feynman diagrams. These sum rules give constraints on the spectra and triple integrals of eigenfunctions of Laplacian operators on the internal manifold and can be proven directly using Hodge and eigenfunction decompositions. One consequence of these constraints is that there is an upper bound on the ratio of consecutive eigenvalues of the scalar Laplacian on closed Ricci-flat manifolds with special holonomy. This gives a sharp bound on the allowed gaps between Kaluza-Klein excitations of the graviton that also applies to Calabi-Yau compactifications of string theory.

Sandeep Kumar Acharya, Rishi Khatri

Injection of high energy electromagnetic particles around the recombination epoch can modify the standard recombination history and therefore the CMB anisotropy power spectrum. Previous studies have put strong constraints on the amount of electromagnetic energy injection around the recombination era (redshifts $z\lesssim 4500$). However, energy injected in the form of energetic ($>$ keV) visible standard model particles is not deposited instantaneously. The considerable delay between the time of energy injection and the time when all energy is deposited to background baryonic gas and CMB photons, together with the extraordinary precision with which the CMB anisotropies have been measured, means that CMB anisotropies are sensitive to energy that was injected much before the epoch of recombination. We show that the CMB anisotropy power spectrum is sensitive to energy injection even at $z = 10000$, giving stronger constraints compared to big bang nucleosynthesis and CMB spectral distortions. We derive, using Planck CMB data, the constraints on long-lived unstable particles decaying at redshifts $z\lesssim 10000$ (lifetime $\tau_X\gtrsim 10^{11}$s) by explicitly evolving the electromagnetic cascades in the expanding Universe, thus extending previous constraints to lower particle lifetimes. We also revisit the BBN constraints and show that the delayed injection of energy is important for BBN constraints. We find that the constraints can be weaker by a factor of few to almost an order of magnitude, depending on the energy, when we relax the quasi-static or on-the-spot assumptions.

Aviad Cohen, Anastasia Fialkov, Rennan Barkana, Raul Monsalve

The 21-cm signal of neutral hydrogen is a sensitive probe of the Epoch of Reionization, Cosmic Dawn and the Dark Ages. Currently operating radio telescopes have ushered in a data-driven era of 21-cm cosmology, providing the first constraints on the astrophysical properties of sources that drive this signal. However, extracting astrophysical information from the data is highly non-trivial and requires the rapid generation of theoretical templates over a wide range of astrophysical parameters. To this end emulators are often employed, with previous efforts focused on predicting the power spectrum. In this work we introduce 21cmGEM -- the first emulator of the global 21-cm signal from Cosmic Dawn and the Epoch of Reionization. The smoothness of the output signal is guaranteed by design. We train neural networks to predict the cosmological signal based on a seven-parameter astrophysical model, using a database of $\sim$30,000 simulated signals. We test the performance with a set of $\sim$2,000 simulated signals, showing that the relative error in the prediction has an r.m.s. of 0.0159. The algorithm is efficient, with a running time per parameter set of 0.16 sec. Finally, we use the database of models to check the robustness of relations between the features of the global signal and the astrophysical parameters that we previously reported. In particular, we confirm the prediction that the coordinates of the maxima of the global signal, if measured, can be used to estimate the Ly{\alpha} intensity and the X-ray intensity at early cosmic times.