False Vacuum Chaotic Inflation: The New Paradigm?

Recent work is reported on inflation model building in the context of supergravity and superstrings, with special emphasis on False Vacuum (`Hybrid') Chaotic Inflation. Globally supersymmetric models do not survive in generic supergravity theories, but fairly simple conditions can be formulated which do ensure successful supergravity inflation. The conditions are met in some of the versions of supergravity that emerge from superstrings.Comment: 4 pages, LATEX, LANCASTER-TH 94-1

Central European foreign exchange markets: a cross-spectral analysis of the 2007 financial crisis

This paper investigates co-movements between currency markets of Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Euro in the year following the drying up of money markets in August 2007. The paper shows that assessing the degree of foreign currency co-movement by correlation can lead to concluding, erroneously, that financial contagion has not occurred. Using cross-spectral methods, the paper shows that defining contagion as changes in the structure of co-movements of asset prices encompasses more of the complex nature of exchange rate dynamics. What is shown is that, following August 2007, there is increased in the intensity of co-movements, but non-linearly. Focusing on the activities of a mix of banks and currency managers, it is suggested that changes in the structure of currency interaction present an unfavourable view of the contagion experienced by at least three of these currencies

Generalized Assisted Inflation

We obtain a new class of exact cosmological solutions for multi-scalar fields with exponential potentials. We generalize the assisted inflation solutions previously obtained, and demonstrate how they are modified when there exist cross-couplings between the fields, such as occur in supergravity inspired cosmological models.Comment: 5 page

Fanny Copeland and the geographical imagination

Raised in Scotland, married and divorced in the English south, an adopted Slovene, Fanny Copeland (1872 – 1970) occupied the intersection of a number of complex spatial and temporal conjunctures. A Slavophile, she played a part in the formation of what subsequently became the Kingdom of Yugoslavia that emerged from the First World War. Living in Ljubljana, she facilitated the first ‘foreign visit’ (in 1932) of the newly formed Le Play Society (a precursor of the Institute of British Geographers) and guided its studies of Solčava (a then ‘remote’ Alpine valley system) which, led by Dudley Stamp and commended by Halford Mackinder, were subsequently hailed as a model for regional studies elsewhere. Arrested by the Gestapo and interned in Italy during the Second World War, she eventually returned to a socialist Yugoslavia, a celebrated figure. An accomplished musician, linguist, and mountaineer, she became an authority on (and populist for) the Julian Alps and was instrumental in the establishment of the Triglav National Park. Copeland’s role as participant observer (and protagonist) enriches our understanding of the particularities of her time and place and illuminates some inter-war relationships within G/geography, inside and outside the academy, suggesting their relative autonomy in the production of geographical knowledge

Correspondence between Loop-inspired and Braneworld Cosmology

Braneworld scenarios are motivated by string/M-theory and can be characterized by the way in which they modify the conventional Friedmann equations of Einstein gravity. An alternative approach to quantum gravity, however, is the loop quantum cosmology program. In the semi-classical limit, the cosmic dynamics in this scenario can also be described by a set of modified Friedmann equations. We demonstrate that a dynamical correspondence can be established between these two paradigms at the level of the effective field equations. This allows qualitatively similar features between the two approaches to be compared and contrasted as well as providing a framework for viewing braneworld scenarios in terms of constrained Hamiltonian systems. As concrete examples of this correspondence, we illustrate the relationships between different cosmological backgrounds representing scaling solutions

Growth of Inflaton Perturbations and the Post-Inflation Era in Supersymmetric Hybrid Inflation Models

It has been shown that hybrid inflation may end with the formation of non-topological solitons of inflaton field. As a first step towards a fully realistic picture of the post-inflation era and reheating in supersymmetric hybrid inflation models, we study the classical scalar field equations of a supersymmetric hybrid inflation model using a semi-analytical ansatz for the spatial dependence of the fields. Using the minimal D-term inflation model as an example, the inflaton field is evolved using the full 1-loop effective potential from the slow-rolling era to the U(1)_{FI} symmetry-breaking phase transition. Spatial perturbations of the inflaton corresponding to quantum fluctuations are introduced for the case where there is spatially coherent U(1)_{FI} symmetry breaking. The maximal growth of the dominant perturbation is found to depend only on the ratio of superpotential coupling \lambda to the gauge coupling g. The inflaton condensate fragments to non-topological solitons for \lambda/g > 0.09. Possible consequences of non-topological soliton formation in fully realistic SUSY hybrid inflation models are discussed.Comment: 27 pages LaTeX, 8 figures. Additional references and discussio

Global and Local D-vortices

Codimension-two objects on a system of brane-antibrane are studied in the context of Born-Infeld type effective field theory with a complex tachyon and U(1)$\times$U(1) gauge fields. When the radial electric field is turned on in D2${\bar {\rm D}}$2, we find static regular global and local D-vortex solutions which could be candidates of straight cosmic D-strings in a superstring theory. A natural extension to DF-strings is briefly discussed.Comment: 24 pages, 10 eps figure

Classical and quantum time dependent solutions in string theory

Using the ontological interpretation of quantum mechanics in a particular sense, we obtain the classical behaviour of the scale factor and two scalar fields, derived from a string effective action for the FRW time dependent model. Besides, the Wheeler-DeWitt equation is solved exactly. We speculate that the same procedure could also be applied to S-branes.Comment: 11 pages, To appear in Int. J. Mod. Phys.

Nonsingular Chaplygin gas cosmologies in universes connected by wormhole

We present some exact solutions of the Einstein equations with an anisotropic fluid exploiting the Chaplygin equation of state. The solutions describe spacetimes with two identical T regions and an intermediate static spherically symmetric R region containing a wormhole. The metric in the T region represents an anisotropic Kantowski-Sachs cosmological model. Its evolution starts from an event horizon and develops according to different scenarios including eternal expansion, contraction and also a finite universe lifetime.Comment: 14 pages, 9 figure

Construction of nonsingular cosmological solutions in string theories

We study nonsingular cosmological scenarios in a general $D$-dimensional string effective action of the dilaton-modulus-axion system in the presence of the matter source. In the standard dilatonic Brans-Dicke parameter ($\omega=-1$) with radiation, we analytically obtain singularity-free bouncing solutions where the universe starts out in a state with a finite curvature and evolves toward the weakly coupled regime. We apply this analytic method to the string-gas cosmology including the massive state in addition to the leading massless state (radiation), with and without the axion. We numerically find bouncing solutions which asymptotically approach an almost radiation-dominant universe with a decreasing curvature irrespective of the presence of the axion, implying that inclusion of the matter source is crucial for the existence of such solutions for $\omega=-1$. In the theories with $\omega \ne -1$, it is possible to obtain complete regular bouncing solutions with a finite dilaton and curvature in both past and future asymptotics for the general dimension, $D$. We also discuss the case where dilatonic higher-order corrections are involved to the tree-level effective action and demonstrate that the presence of axion/modulus fields and the matter source does not significantly affect the dynamics of the dilaton-driven inflation and the subsequent graceful exit.Comment: 27 pages, 6 eps figure