On the gravitational collapse in anti-de Sitter space-time

We study the semiclassical evolution of a self-gravitating thick shell in Anti-de Sitter space-time. We treat the matter on the shell as made of quantized bosons and evaluate the back-reaction of the loss of gravitational energy which is radiated away as a non-adiabatic effect. A peculiar feature of anti-de Sitter is that such an emission also occurs for large shell radius, contrary to the asymptotically flat case.Comment: Changed to Elsevier style, 9 pages, 1 figure. Minor typos corrected. Accepted for publication in Phys. Lett.

Gauss-Bonnet Brane Cosmology with Radion Stabilization

We study cosmology in a five-dimensional brane-world with a stabilizing effective potential for the radion and matter localized on the two branes. We consider the corrections induced by the Gauss-Bonnet contribution to the total action performing and expansion around the two possible static solutions up to second order in the ratio between brane matter energy density and brane tensions. The Friedmann and acceleration equations on the visible brane are obtained and discussed.Comment: To be published in Phys.Rev.D, References Adde

Thermodynamics of a collapsing shell in an expanding Universe

We describe the quasi-static collapse of a radiating, spherical shell of matter in de Sitter space-time using a thermodynamical formalism. It is found that the specific heat at constant area and other thermodynamical quantities exhibit singularities related to phase transitions during the collapse.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Lett.

Charged False Vacuum Bubbles and the AdS/CFT Correspondence

We initiate a study of cosmology within the framework of Maldacena's AdS/CFT correspondence. We present a comprehensive analysis of the classical motion of a charged domain wall that separates an external Reissner-Nordstrom region of spacetime (with small or vanishing cosmological constant) from an internal de-Sitter region. The possible associated spacetime diagrams are drawn, although in the classical case, an unambiguous prediction of what occurs at late times in the interior region is not possible, since singularities and Cauchy horizons form. We argue that, when the asymptotic region is anti-de Sitter, the AdS/CFT correspondence gives a prescription for resolving the curvature singularities and evolving solutions across the expected Cauchy horizon. Some of our solutions contain inflating interiors, and we provide evidence these can be patched onto solutions with smooth initial data, circumventing an obstacle found by Farhi and Guth to creating an inflating universe in the laboratory.Comment: 21 pages, 6 figures, latex, references and some comments adde

Quantized shells as a tool for studying semiclassical effects in general relativity

Thin shells in general relativity can be used both as models of collapsing objects and as probes in the space-time outside compact sources. Therefore they provide a useful tool for the analysis of the final fate of collapsing matter and of the effects induced in the matter by strong gravitational fields. We describe the radiating shell as a (second quantized) many-body system with one collective degree of freedom, the (average) radius, by means of an effective action which also entails a thermodynamic description. Then we study some of the quantum effects that occur in the matter when the shell evolves from an (essentially classical) large initial radius towards the singularity and compute the corresponding backreaction on its trajectory.Comment: 4 pages, uses espcrc2.sty, no figures, talk given at the Third meeting on constrained dynamics and quantum gravity (QG99), Sardinia, Sept 199

Second order brane cosmology with radion stabilization

We study cosmology in the five-dimensional Randall-Sundrum brane-world with a stabilizing effective potential for the radion and matter localized on the branes. The analysis is performed by employing a perturbative expansion in the ratio rho/V between the matter energy density on the branes and the brane tensions around the static Randall-Sundrum solution (which has rho=0 and brane tensions +-V). This approach ensures that the matter evolves adiabatically and allows us to find approximate solutions to second order in \rho/V. Some particular cases are then analyzed in details.Comment: 17 pages, RevTeX4, 4 figures, final version to appear in Phys. Rev.