10,649 research outputs found
Distributed SUSY Breaking: Dark Energy, Newton's Law and the LHC
We identify the underlying symmetry mechanism that suppresses the low-energy
effective 4D cosmological constant within 6D supergravity models, leading to
results suppressed by powers of the KK scale relative to the much larger masses
associated with particles localized on codimension-2 branes. In these models
the conditions for unbroken supersymmetry can be satisfied locally everywhere
within the extra dimensions, but are obstructed by global conditions like flux
quantization or the mutual inconsistency of boundary conditions at the various
branes. Consequently quantities forbidden by supersymmetry cannot be nonzero
until wavelengths of order the KK scale are integrated out, since only such
long wavelength modes see the entire space and so know that supersymmetry
breaks. We verify these arguments by extending earlier rugby-ball calculations
of one-loop vacuum energies to more general pairs of branes within two warped
extra dimensions. The predicted effective 4D vacuum energy density can be of
order C (m Mg/4 pi Mp)^4, where Mg (Mp) is the rationalized 6D (4D) Planck
scale and m is the heaviest brane-localized particle. Numerically this is C
(5.6 x 10^{-5} eV)^4 if we take m = 173 GeV and take Mg as small as possible
(10 TeV corresponding to KK size r < 1 micron), consistent with supernova
bounds. C is a constant depending on details of the bulk spectrum, which could
be ~ 500 for each of hundreds of fields. The value C ~ 6 x 10^6 gives the
observed Dark Energy density
Gravitational Forces on a Codimension-2 Brane
We compute the gravitational response of six dimensional gauged, chiral
supergravity to localized stress energy on one of two space-filling branes,
including the effects of compactifying the extra dimensions and brane
back-reaction. We find a broad class of exact solutions, including various
black-brane solutions. Several approximate solutions are also described, such
as the near-horizon geometry of a small black hole which is argued to be
approximately described by a 6D Schwarzschild (or Kerr) black hole, with event
horizon appropriately modified to encode the brane back-reaction. The general
linearized far-field solutions are found in the 4D regime very far from the
source, and all integration constants are related to physical quantities
describing the branes and the localized energy source. The localized source
determines two of these, corresponding to the source mass and the size of the
strength of a coupling to a 4D scalar mode whose mass is parametrically smaller
than the KK scale. At large distances the solutions agree with those of 4D
general relativity, but for an intermediate range of distances (larger than the
KK scale) the solutions better fit a Brans-Dicke theory. For a realistic choice
of parameters the KK scale could lie at a micron, while the crossover to
Brans-Dicke behaviour could occur at around 10 microns. While allowed by
present data this points to potentially measurable changes to Newton's Law
arising at distances larger than the KK scale.Comment: 31 pages + appendices, 2 figure
On Bouncing Brane-Worlds, S-branes and Branonium Cosmology
We present several higher-dimensional spacetimes for which observers living
on 3-branes experience an induced metric which bounces. The classes of examples
include boundary branes on generalised S-brane backgrounds and probe branes in
D-brane/anti D-brane systems. The bounces we consider normally would be
expected to require an energy density which violates the weak energy condition,
and for our co-dimension one examples this is attributable to bulk curvature
terms in the effective Friedmann equation. We examine the features of the
acceleration which provides the bounce, including in some cases the existence
of positive acceleration without event horizons, and we give a geometrical
interpretation for it. We discuss the stability of the solutions from the point
of view of both the brane and the bulk. Some of our examples appear to be
stable from the bulk point of view, suggesting the possible existence of stable
bouncing cosmologies within the brane-world framework.Comment: 35 pages, 7 figures, JHEP style. Title changed and references adde
Running with Rugby Balls: Bulk Renormalization of Codimension-2 Branes
We compute how one-loop bulk effects renormalize both bulk and brane
effective interactions for geometries sourced by codimension-two branes. We do
so by explicitly integrating out spin-zero, -half and -one particles in
6-dimensional Einstein-Maxwell-Scalar theories compactified to 4 dimensions on
a flux-stabilized 2D geometry. (Our methods apply equally well for D dimensions
compactified to D-2 dimensions, although our explicit formulae do not capture
all divergences when D>6.) The renormalization of bulk interactions are
independent of the boundary conditions assumed at the brane locations, and
reproduce standard heat-kernel calculations. Boundary conditions at any
particular brane do affect how bulk loops renormalize this brane's effective
action, but not the renormalization of other distant branes. Although we
explicitly compute our loops using a rugby ball geometry, because we follow
only UV effects our results apply more generally to any geometry containing
codimension-two sources with conical singularities. Our results have a variety
of uses, including calculating the UV sensitivity of one-loop vacuum energy
seen by observers localized on the brane. We show how these one-loop effects
combine in a surprising way with bulk back-reaction to give the complete
low-energy effective cosmological constant, and comment on the relevance of
this calculation to proposed applications of codimension-two 6D models to
solutions of the hierarchy and cosmological constant problems.Comment: 42 pages + appendices. This is the final version which appears in
JHE
On the Naturalness of Higgs Inflation
We critically examine the recent claim that the Standard Model Higgs boson
could drive inflation in agreement with observations if has a strong coupling to the Ricci curvature scalar. We
first show that the effective theory approach upon which that claim is based
ceases to be valid beyond a cutoff scale , where is the
reduced Planck mass. We then argue that knowing the Higgs potential profile for
the field values relevant for inflation () requires knowledge of the ultraviolet completion of the SM beyond
. In absence of such microscopic theory, the extrapolation of the pure
SM potential beyond is unwarranted and the scenario is akin to other
ad-hoc inflaton potentials afflicted with significant fine-tuning. The
appealing naturalness of this minimal proposal is therefore lost.Comment: 9 pages. Replaced with published version, plus a footnote clarifying
the use of power counting estimate
Accidental SUSY: Enhanced Bulk Supersymmetry from Brane Back-reaction
We compute how bulk loops renormalize both bulk and brane effective
interactions for codimension-two branes in 6D gauged chiral supergravity, as
functions of the brane tension and brane-localized flux. We do so by explicitly
integrating out hyper- and gauge-multiplets in 6D gauged chiral supergravity
compactified to 4D on a flux-stabilized 2D rugby-ball geometry, specializing
the results of a companion paper, arXiv:1210.3753, to the supersymmetric case.
While the brane back-reaction generically breaks supersymmetry, we show that
the bulk supersymmetry can be preserved if the amount of brane-localized flux
is related in a specific BPS-like way to the brane tension, and verify that the
loop corrections to the brane curvature vanish in this special case. In these
systems it is the brane-bulk couplings that fix the size of the extra
dimensions, and we show that in some circumstances the bulk geometry
dynamically adjusts to ensure the supersymmetric BPS-like condition is
automatically satisfied. We investigate the robustness of this residual
supersymmetry to loops of non-supersymmetric matter on the branes, and show
that supersymmetry-breaking effects can enter only through effective brane-bulk
interactions involving at least two derivatives. We comment on the relevance of
this calculation to proposed applications of codimension-two 6D models to
solutions of the hierarchy and cosmological constant problems.Comment: 49 pages + appendices. This is the final version to appear in JHE
Circumventing the eta problem in building an inflationary model in string theory
The eta problem is one of the most significant obstacles to building a
successful inflationary model in string theory. Planck mass suppressed
corrections to the inflaton potential generally lead to inflaton masses of
order the Hubble scale and generate contributions of order unity to the eta
slow roll parameter rendering prolonged slow roll inflation impossible. We
demonstrate the severity of this problem in the context of brane anti-brane
inflation in a warped throat of a Calabi-Yau flux compactification with all
phenomenologically dangerous moduli stabilized. Using exact numerical solutions
we show that the eta problem can be avoided in scenarios where the inflaton is
non-minimally coupled to gravity and has Dirac-Born-Infeld (DBI) kinetic term.
We show that the resulting cosmic microwave background (CMB) observables such
as measures of non-gaussianites can, in principle, serve as a probe of
scalar-gravity couplings.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures; title changed and reference added to match
published version in PR
Hairy Leukoplakia
Oral hairy leukoplakia (OHL) is a disease of the mucosa first described in 1984. This pathology is associated with Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) and occurs mostly in people with HIV infection, both immunocompromised and immunocompetent, and can affect patients who are HIV negative. [1, 2] The first case in an HIV-negative patient was reported in 1999 in a 56-year-old patient with acute lymphocytic leukemia. Later, many cases were reported in heart, kidney, and bone marrow transplant recipients and patients with hematological malignancies. [3, 4
Preheating after Small-Field Inflation
Whereas preheating after chaotic and hybrid inflation models has been
abundantly studied in the literature, preheating in small field inflation
models, where the curvature of the inflaton potential is negative during
inflation, remains less explored. In these models, a tachyonic instability at
the end of inflation leads to a succession of exponentially large increases and
\emph{decreases} of the inflaton fluctuations as the inflaton condensate
oscillates around the minimum of its potential. The net effect is a competition
between low-momentum modes which grow and decrease significantly, and modes
with higher momenta which grow less but also decrease less. We develop an
analytical description of this process, which is analogous to the quantum
mechanical problem of tunneling through a volcano-shaped potential. Depending
on the parameters, preheating may be so efficient that it completes in less
than one oscillation of the inflaton condensate. Preheating after small field
inflation may also be followed by a long matter-dominated stage before the
universe thermalizes, depending on the energy scale of inflation and the
details of the inflaton interactions. Finally, another feature of these models
is that the spectrum of the inflaton fluctuations at the end of preheating may
be peaked around the Hubble scale. In fact, because preheating starts when the
second slow-roll parameter becomes of order unity while the first
slow-roll parameter is still much smaller than one, the universe is
still inflating during preheating and the modes amplified by the initial
tachyonic instability leave the Hubble radius. This may lead to an abundant
production of primordial black holes and gravitational waves with frequencies
today which are naturally small enough to fall into the range accessible by
high-sensitivity interferometric experiments.Comment: 34 pages, 16 figures. v2: 1 ref. added, accepted for publication in
Phys.Rev.
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