1995/11/19 by Zurab Berezhiani, Z. G. Berezhiani, A. D. Dolgov +1 · 11 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Neutrino Physics Research #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #astro-ph #hep-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1016/0370-2693(96)00219-5
published as Phys.Lett.B375:26-36,1996 · 13 pages, LATEX, no figures (slight textual changes, few references added)
arxiv created 1995/11/19 · openalex publication_date 1996/05/01 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The existence of a shadow world (or mirror universe) with matter and forces identical to that of the visible world but interacting with the latter only via gravity can be motivated by superstring theories as well as by recent attempts to understand the nature of a sterile neutrino needed if all known neutrino data are to be consistent with each other. A simple way to reconcile the constraints of big bang nucleosynthesis in such a theory is to postulate that the reheating temperature after inflation in the mirror universe is lower than that in the visible one. We have constructed explicit models that realize this proposal and have shown that the asymmetric reheating can be related to a difference of the electroweak symmetry breaking scales in the two sectors, which is needed for a solution of the neutrino puzzles in this picture. Cosmological implications of the mirror matter are also discussed.