648 research outputs found
Power Laws and the Cosmic Ray Energy Spectrum
Two separate statistical tests are applied to the AGASA and preliminary Auger
Cosmic Ray Energy spectra in an attempt to find deviation from a pure
power-law. The first test is constructed from the probability distribution for
the maximum event of a sample drawn from a power-law. The second employs the
TP-statistic, a function defined to deviate from zero when the sample deviates
from the power-law form, regardless of the value of the power index. The AGASA
data show no significant deviation from a power-law when subjected to both
tests. Applying these tests to the Auger spectrum suggests deviation from a
power-law. However, potentially large systematics on the relative energy scale
prevent us from drawing definite conclusions at this time.Comment: 21 pages, 18 figures, submitted to Astro. Part. Phy
Supersymmetry Changing Bubbles in String Theory
We give examples of string compactifications to 4d Minkowski space with
different amounts of supersymmetry that can be connected by spherical domain
walls. The tension of these domain walls is tunably lower than the 4d Planck
scale. The ``stringy'' description of these walls is known in terms of certain
configurations of wrapped Dirichlet and NS branes. This construction allows us
to connect a variety of vacua with 4d N=4,3,2,1 supersymmetry.Comment: 11 pages, harvmac, no figures, reference added, minor correction
Type IIB Solutions with Interpolating Supersymmetries
We study type IIB supergravity solutions with four supersymmetries that
interpolate between two types widely considered in the literature: the dual of
Becker and Becker's compactifications of M-theory to 3 dimensions and the dual
of Strominger's torsion compactifications of heterotic theory to 4 dimensions.
We find that for all intermediate solutions the internal manifold is not
Calabi-Yau, but has SU(3) holonomy in a connection with a torsion given by the
3-form flux. All 3-form and 5-form fluxes, as well as the dilaton, depend on
one function appearing in the supersymmetry spinor, which satisfies a nonlinear
differential equation. We check that the fields corresponding to a flat bound
state of D3/D5-branes lie in our class of solutions. The relations among
supergravity fields that we derive should be useful in studying new gravity
duals of gauge theories, as well as possibly compactifications.Comment: 27pp, v2 REVTeX4, typographical fixes and minor clarifications, v3
added ref, modified discussion of RR axion slightl
Calabi-Yau Fourfolds with Flux and Supersymmetry Breaking
In Calabi-Yau fourfold compactifications of M-theory with flux, we
investigate the possibility of partial supersymmetry breaking in the
three-dimensional effective theory. To this end, we place the effective theory
in the framework of general N=2 gauged supergravities, in the special case
where only translational symmetries are gauged. This allows us to extract
supersymmetry-breaking conditions, and interpret them as conditions on the
4-form flux and Calabi-Yau geometry. For N=2 unbroken supersymmetry in three
dimensions we recover previously known results, and we find a new condition for
breaking supersymmetry from N=2 to N=1, i.e. from four to two supercharges. An
example of a Calabi-Yau hypersurface in a toric variety that satisfies this
condition is provided.Comment: 26 page
N=3 Warped Compactifications
Orientifolds with three-form flux provide some of the simplest string
examples of warped compactification. In this paper we show that some models of
this type have the unusual feature of D=4, N=3 spacetime supersymmetry. We
discuss their construction and low energy physics. Although the local form of
the moduli space is fully determined by supersymmetry, to find its global form
requires a careful study of the BPS spectrum.Comment: 27 pages, v2: 32pp., RevTeX4, fixed factors, slightly improved
sections 3D and 4B, v3: added referenc
Moduli Stabilization from Fluxes in a Simple IIB Orientifold
We study novel type IIB compactifications on the T^6/Z_2 orientifold. This
geometry arises in the T-dual description of Type I theory on T^6, and one
normally introduces 16 space-filling D3-branes to cancel the RR tadpoles. Here,
we cancel the RR tadpoles either partially or fully by turning on three-form
flux in the compact geometry. The resulting (super)potential for moduli is
calculable. We demonstrate that one can find many examples of N=1
supersymmetric vacua with greatly reduced numbers of moduli in this system. A
few examples with N>1 supersymmetry or complete supersymmetry breaking are also
discussed.Comment: 49 pages, harvmac big; v2, corrected some typo
Flux Compactifications on Calabi-Yau Threefolds
The presence of RR and NS three-form fluxes in type IIB string
compactification on a Calabi-Yau orientifold gives rise to a nontrivial
superpotential W for the dilaton and complex structure moduli. This
superpotential is computable in terms of the period integrals of the Calabi-Yau
manifold. In this paper, we present explicit examples of both supersymmetric
and nonsupersymmetric solutions to the resulting 4d N=1 supersymmetric no-scale
supergravity, including some nonsupersymmetric solutions with relatively small
values of W. Our examples arise on orientifolds of the hypersurfaces in
and . They serve as explicit
illustrations of several of the ingredients which have played a role in the
recent proposals for constructing de Sitter vacua of string theory.Comment: 30 pages, harvmac big; refs and minor comments adde
The Fall of Stringy de Sitter
Kachru, Kallosh, Linde, & Trivedi recently constructed a four-dimensional de
Sitter compactification of IIB string theory, which they showed to be
metastable in agreement with general arguments about de Sitter spacetimes in
quantum gravity. In this paper, we describe how discrete flux choices lead to a
closely-spaced set of vacua and explore various decay channels. We find that in
many situations NS5-brane meditated decays which exchange NSNS 3-form flux for
D3-branes are comparatively very fast.Comment: 35 pp (11 pp appendices), 5 figures, v3. fixed minor typo
Collapsing D-Branes in Calabi-Yau Moduli Space: I
We study the quantum volume of D-branes wrapped around various cycles in
Calabi-Yau manifolds, as the manifold's moduli are varied. In particular, we
focus on the behaviour of these D-branes near phase transitions between
distinct low energy physical descriptions of the resulting string theory.
Whereas previous studies have solely considered quantum volumes in the context
of two-cycles in perturbative string theory or D-branes in the specific example
of the quintic hypersurface, we work more generally and find qualitatively new
features. On the mathematical side, as we briefly note, our work has some
interesting implications for certain issues in arithmetics.Comment: 77 pages, 15 figure
de Sitter String Vacua from Supersymmetric D-terms
We propose a new mechanism for obtaining de Sitter vacua in type IIB string
theory compactified on (orientifolded) Calabi-Yau manifolds similar to those
recently studied by Kachru, Kallosh, Linde and Trivedi (KKLT). dS vacuum
appears in KKLT model after uplifting an AdS vacuum by adding an anti-D3-brane,
which explicitly breaks supersymmetry. We accomplish the same goal by adding
fluxes of gauge fields within the D7-branes, which induce a D-term potential in
the effective 4D action. In this way we obtain dS space as a spontaneously
broken vacuum from a purely supersymmetric 4D action. We argue that our
approach can be directly extended to heterotic string vacua, with the dilaton
potential obtained from a combination of gaugino condensation and the D-terms
generated by anomalous U(1) gauge groups.Comment: 17 pages, 1 figur
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