Non-Relativistic Superstrings: A New Soluble Sector of AdS_5xS^5

We find a new sector of string theory in AdS_5xS^5 describing non-relativistic superstrings in that geometry. The worldsheet theory of non-relativistic strings in AdS_5xS^5 is derived and shown to reduce to a supersymmetric free field theory in AdS_2. Non-relativistic string theory provides a new calculable setting in which to study holography.Comment: 29 pages, LATEX forma

Localised anti-branes in non-compact throats at zero and finite T

We investigate the 3-form singularities that are typical to anti-brane solutions in supergravity and check whether they can be cloaked by a finite temperature horizon. For anti-D3-branes in the Klebanov-Strassler background, this was already shown numerically to be impossible when the branes are partially smeared. In this paper, we present analytic arguments that also localised branes remain with singular 3-form fluxes at both zero and finite temperature. These results may have important, possibly fatal, consequences for constructions of meta-stable de Sitter vacua through uplifting.Comment: 18 + 9 page

Effects of Nonlinear Dispersion Relations on Non-Gaussianities

We investigate the effect of non-linear dispersion relations on the bispectrum. In particular, we study the case were the modified relations do not violate the WKB condition at early times, focusing on a particular example which is exactly solvable: the Jacobson-Corley dispersion relation with quartic correction with positive coefficient to the squared linear relation. We find that the corrections to the standard result for the bispectrum are suppressed by a factor $\frac{H^2}{p_c^2}$ where $p_c$ is the scale where the modification to the dispersion relation becomes relevant. The modification is {\it mildly} configuration-dependent and equilateral configurations are more suppressed with respect to the local ones, by a factor of one percent. There is no configuration leading to enhancements. We then analyze the results in the framework of particle creation using the approximate gluing method of Brandenberger and Martin, which relates more directly to the modeling of the trans-Planckian physics via modifications of the vacuum at a certain cutoff scale. We show that the gluing method overestimates the leading order correction to the spectrum and bispectrum by one and two orders, respectively, in $\frac{H}{p_c}$. We discuss the various approximation and conclude that for dispersion relations not violating WKB at early times the particle creation is small and does not lead to enhanced contributions to the bispectrum. We also show that in many cases enhancements do not occur when modeling the trans-Planckian physics via modifications of the vacuum at a certain cutoff scale. Most notably they are only of order O(1) when the Bogolyubov coefficients accounting for particle creation are determined by the Wronskian condition and the minimization of the uncertainty between the field and its conjugate momentum.Comment: v1: 11 pages, 2 figures; v2: references update

Observing the Structure of the Landscape with the CMB Experiments

Assuming that inflation happened through a series of tunneling in the string theory landscape, it is argued that one can determine the structure of vacua using precise measurements of the scalar spectral index and tensor perturbations at large scales. It is shown that for a vacuum structure where the energy gap between the minima is constant, i.e. $\epsilon_i=i m_f^4$, one obtains the scalar spectral index, $n_s$, to be $\simeq 0.9687$, for the modes that exit the horizon 60 e-folds before the end of inflation. Alternatively, for a vacuum structure in which the energy gap increases linearly with the vacuum index, i.e. $\epsilon_i=\frac{i^2}{2} m_f^4$, $n_s$ turns out to be $\simeq 0.9614$. Both these two models are motivated within the string theory landscape using flux-compactification and their predictions for scalar spectral index are compatible with WMAP results. For both these two models, the results for the scalar spectral index turn out to be independent of $m_f$. Nonetheless, assuming that inflation started at Planckian energies and that there had been successful thermalization at each step, one can constrain $m_f<2.6069\times 10^{-5} m_P$ and $m_f<6.5396\times 10^{-7} m_P$ in these two models, respectively. Violation of the single-field consistency relation between the tensor and scalar spectra is another prediction of chain inflation models. This corresponds to having a smaller tensor/scalar ratio at large scales in comparison with the slow-roll counterparts. Similar to slow-roll inflation, it is argued that one can reconstruct the vacuum structure using the CMB experiments.Comment: v1: 8 pages, 2 figures; v2: grammatical typos corrected, results unchanged v3: To be published in JCA

Inflation as a probe of new physics

In this paper we consider inflation as a probe of new physics near the string or Planck scale. We discuss how new physics can be captured by the choice of vacuum, and how this leads to modifications of the primordial spectrum as well as the way in which the universe expands during inflation. Provided there is a large number of fields contributing to the vacuum energy -- as typically is expected in string theory -- we will argue that both types of effects can be present simultaneously and be of observational relevance. Our conclusion is that the ambiguity in choice of vacuum is an interesting new parameter in serious model building.Comment: 14 page

Creation of Fundamental Strings by Crossing D-branes

We study the force balance between orthogonally positioned $p$-brane and $(8-p)$-brane. The force due to graviton and dilaton exchange is repulsive in this case. We identify the attractive force that balances this repulsion as due to one-half of a fundamental string stretched between the branes. As the $p$-brane passes through the $(8-p)$-brane, the connecting string changes direction, which may be interpreted as creation of one fundamental string. We show this directly from the structure of the Chern-Simons terms in the D-brane effective actions. We also discuss the effect of string creation on the 0-brane quantum mechanics in the type I' theory. The creation of a fundamental string is related by U-duality to the creation of a 3-brane discussed by Hanany and Witten. Both processes have a common origin in M-theory: as two M5-branes with one common direction cross, a M2-brane stretched between them is created.Comment: 6 pages, Late

Holographic Superconductors with Lifshitz Scaling

Black holes in asymptotically Lifshitz spacetime provide a window onto finite temperature effects in strongly coupled Lifshitz models. We add a Maxwell gauge field and charged matter to a recently proposed gravity dual of 2+1 dimensional Lifshitz theory. This gives rise to charged black holes with scalar hair, which correspond to the superconducting phase of holographic superconductors with z > 1 Lifshitz scaling. Along the way we analyze the global geometry of static, asymptotically Lifshitz black holes at arbitrary critical exponent z > 1. In all known exact solutions there is a null curvature singularity in the black hole region, and, by a general argument, the same applies to generic Lifshitz black holes.Comment: 23 pages, 4 figures; v2: added references; v3: matches published versio

Spectroscopy of the quantum black hole

We develop the idea that, in quantum gravity where the horizon fluctuates, a black hole should have a discrete mass spectrum with concomitant line emission. Simple arguments fix the spacing of the lines, which should be broad but unblended. Assuming uniformity of the matrix elements for quantum transitions between near levels, we work out the probabilities for the emission of a specified series of quanta and the intensities of the spectral lines. The thermal character of the radiation is entirely due to the degeneracy of the levels, the same degeneracy that becomes manifest as black hole entropy. One prediction is that there should be no lines with wavelength of order the black hole size or larger. This makes it possible to test quantum gravity with black holes well above Planck scale.Comment: RevTeX, 9 page

Have ozone effects on carbon sequestration been overestimated?: a new biomass response function for wheat

Elevated levels of tropospheric ozone can significantly impair the growth of crops. The reduced removal of CO2 by plants leads to higher atmospheric concentrations of CO2, enhancing radiative forcing. Ozone effects on economic yield, e.g. the grain yield of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), are currently used to model effects on radiative forcing. However, changes in grain yield do not necessarily reflect changes in total biomass. Based on an analysis of 22 ozone exposure experiments with field-grown wheat, we investigated whether the use of effects on grain yield as a proxy for effects on biomass under- or overestimates effects on biomass. First, we confirmed that effects on partitioning and biomass loss are both of significant importance for wheat yield loss. Then we derived ozone dose response functions for biomass loss and for harvest index (the proportion of above-ground biomass converted to grain) based on 12 experiments and recently developed ozone uptake modelling for wheat. Finally, we used a European-scale chemical transport model (EMEP MSC-West) to assess the effect of ozone on biomass (−9%) and grain yield (−14%) loss over Europe. Based on yield data per grid square, we estimated above-ground biomass losses due to ozone in 2000 in Europe, totalling 22.2 million tonnes. Incorrectly applying the grain yield response function to model effects on biomass instead of the biomass response function of this paper would have indicated total above-ground biomass losses totalling 38.1 million (i.e. overestimating effects by 15.9 million tonnes). A key conclusion from our study is that future assessments of ozone-induced loss of agroecosystem carbon storage should use response functions for biomass, such as that provided in this paper, not grain yield, to avoid overestimation of the indirect radiative forcing from ozone effects on crop biomass accumulation

An implementation of Deflate in Coq

The widely-used compression format "Deflate" is defined in RFC 1951 and is based on prefix-free codings and backreferences. There are unclear points about the way these codings are specified, and several sources for confusion in the standard. We tried to fix this problem by giving a rigorous mathematical specification, which we formalized in Coq. We produced a verified implementation in Coq which achieves competitive performance on inputs of several megabytes. In this paper we present the several parts of our implementation: a fully verified implementation of canonical prefix-free codings, which can be used in other compression formats as well, and an elegant formalism for specifying sophisticated formats, which we used to implement both a compression and decompression algorithm in Coq which we formally prove inverse to each other -- the first time this has been achieved to our knowledge. The compatibility to other Deflate implementations can be shown empirically. We furthermore discuss some of the difficulties, specifically regarding memory and runtime requirements, and our approaches to overcome them