155 research outputs found
String Gas Cosmology and Structure Formation
It has recently been shown that a Hagedorn phase of string gas cosmology may
provide a causal mechanism for generating a nearly scale-invariant spectrum of
scalar metric fluctuations, without the need for an intervening period of de
Sitter expansion. A distinctive signature of this structure formation scenario
would be a slight blue tilt of the spectrum of gravitational waves. In this
paper we give more details of the computations leading to these results.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figure
Sequestered Dark Matter
We show that hidden-sector dark matter is a generic feature of the type IIB
string theory landscape and that its lifetime may allow for a discovery through
the observation of very energetic gamma-rays produced in the decay. Throats or,
equivalently, conformally sequestered hidden sectors are common in flux
compactifications and the energy deposited in these sectors can be calculated
if the reheating temperature of the standard model sector is known. Assuming
that throats with various warp factors are available in the compact manifold,
we determine which throats maximize the late-time abundance of sequestered dark
matter. For such throats, this abundance agrees with cosmological data if the
standard model reheating temperature was 10^10 - 10^11 GeV. In two distinct
scenarios, the mass of dark matter particles, i.e. the IR scale of the throat,
is either around 10^5 GeV or around 10^10 GeV. The lifetime and the decay
channels of our dark matter candidates depend crucially on the fact that the
Klebanov-Strassler throat is supersymmetric. Furthermore, the details of
supersymmetry breaking both in the throat and in the visible sector play an
essential role. We identify a number of scenarios where this type of dark
matter can be discovered via gamma-ray observations.Comment: 36 pages, 3 figures; v2: references added, v3: introduction extended
and typos correcte
Supersymmetry Breaking and Dilaton Stabilization in String Gas Cosmology
In this Note we study supersymmetry breaking via gaugino condensation in
string gas cosmology. We show that the same gaugino condensate which is
introduced to stabilize the dilaton breaks supersymmetry. We study the
constraints on the scale of supersymmetry breaking which this mechanism leads
to.Comment: 11 page
Moduli Stabilization in Brane Gas Cosmology with Superpotentials
In the context of brane gas cosmology in superstring theory, we show why it
is impossible to simultaneously stabilize the dilaton and the radion with a
general gas of strings (including massless modes) and D-branes. Although this
requires invoking a different mechanism to stabilize these moduli fields, we
find that the brane gas can still play a crucial role in the early universe in
assisting moduli stabilization. We show that a modest energy density of
specific types of brane gas can solve the overshoot problem that typically
afflicts potentials arising from gaugino condensation.Comment: minor changes to match the journal versio
Pulsars with the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder
The Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) is a 36-element
array with a 30-square-degree field of view being built at the proposed SKA
site in Western Australia. We are conducting a Design Study for pulsar
observations with ASKAP, planning both timing and search observations. We
provide an overview of the ASKAP telescope and an update on pulsar-related
progress.Comment: To appear in proceedings of "Radio Pulsars: An astrophysical key to
unlock the secrets of the Universe
String Gas Cosmology
We present a critical review and summary of String Gas Cosmology. We include
a pedagogical derivation of the effective action starting from string theory,
emphasizing the necessary approximations that must be invoked. Working in the
effective theory, we demonstrate that at late-times it is not possible to
stabilize the extra dimensions by a gas of massive string winding modes. We
then consider additional string gases that contain so-called enhanced symmetry
states. These string gases are very heavy initially, but drive the moduli to
locations that minimize the energy and pressure of the gas. We consider both
classical and quantum gas dynamics, where in the former the validity of the
theory is questionable and some fine-tuning is required, but in the latter we
find a consistent and promising stabilization mechanism that is valid at
late-times. In addition, we find that string gases provide a framework to
explore dark matter, presenting alternatives to CDM as recently
considered by Gubser and Peebles. We also discuss quantum trapping with string
gases as a method for including dynamics on the string landscape.Comment: 55 pages, 1 figure, minor corrections, version to appear in Reviews
of Modern Physic
Overproduction of cosmic superstrings
We show that the naive application of the Kibble mechanism seriously
underestimates the initial density of cosmic superstrings that can be formed
during the annihilation of D-branes in the early universe, as in models of
brane-antibrane inflation. We study the formation of defects in effective field
theories of the string theory tachyon both analytically, by solving the
equation of motion of the tachyon field near the core of the defect, and
numerically, by evolving the tachyon field on a lattice. We find that defects
generically form with correlation lengths of order M_s^{-1} rather than H^{-1}.
Hence, defects localized in extra dimensions may be formed at the end of
inflation. This implies that brane-antibrane inflation models where inflation
is driven by branes which wrap the compact manifold may have problems with
overclosure by cosmological relics, such as domain walls and monopoles.Comment: 31 pages, 16 figures, JHEP style; References added; Improved
discussion of initial condition
Following wrong suggestions: self-blame in human and computer scenarios
This paper investigates the specific experience of following a suggestion by
an intelligent machine that has a wrong outcome and the emotions people feel.
By adopting a typical task employed in studies on decision-making, we presented
participants with two scenarios in which they follow a suggestion and have a
wrong outcome by either an expert human being or an intelligent machine. We
found a significant decrease in the perceived responsibility on the wrong
choice when the machine offers the suggestion. At present, few studies have
investigated the negative emotions that could arise from a bad outcome after
following the suggestion given by an intelligent system, and how to cope with
the potential distrust that could affect the long-term use of the system and
the cooperation. This preliminary research has implications in the study of
cooperation and decision making with intelligent machines. Further research may
address how to offer the suggestion in order to better cope with user's
self-blame.Comment: To be published in the Proceedings of IFIP Conference on
Human-Computer Interaction (INTERACT)201
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