Shadows of the Planck Scale: The Changing Face of Compactification Geometry

By studying the effects of the shape moduli associated with toroidal compactifications, we demonstrate that Planck-sized extra dimensions can cast significant ``shadows'' over low-energy physics. These shadows can greatly distort our perceptions of the compactification geometry associated with large extra dimensions, and place a fundamental limit on our ability to probe the geometry of compactification simply by measuring Kaluza-Klein states. We also discuss the interpretation of compactification radii and hierarchies in the context of geometries with non-trivial shape moduli. One of the main results of this paper is that compactification geometry is effectively renormalized as a function of energy scale, with ``renormalization group equations'' describing the ``flow'' of geometric parameters such as compactification radii and shape angles as functions of energy.Comment: 7 pages, LaTeX, 2 figure

Invisible Axions and Large-Radius Compactifications

We study some of the novel effects that arise when the QCD axion is placed in the ``bulk'' of large extra spacetime dimensions. First, we find that the mass of the axion can become independent of the energy scale associated with the breaking of the Peccei-Quinn symmetry. This implies that the mass of the axion can be adjusted independently of its couplings to ordinary matter, thereby providing a new method of rendering the axion invisible. Second, we discuss the new phenomenon of laboratory axion oscillations (analogous to neutrino oscillations), and show that these oscillations cause laboratory axions to ``decohere'' extremely rapidly as a result of Kaluza-Klein mixing. This decoherence may also be a contributing factor to axion invisibility. Third, we discuss the role of Kaluza-Klein axions in axion-mediated processes and decays, and propose several experimental tests of the higher-dimensional nature of the axion. Finally, we show that under certain circumstances, the presence of an infinite tower of Kaluza-Klein axion modes can significantly accelerate the dissipation of the energy associated with cosmological relic axion oscillations, thereby enabling the Peccei-Quinn symmetry-breaking scale to exceed the usual four-dimensional relic oscillation bounds. Together, these ideas therefore provide new ways of obtaining an ``invisible'' axion within the context of higher-dimensional theories with large-radius compactifications.Comment: 43 pages, LaTeX, 6 figure

Kaluza-Klein Dark Matter

We propose that cold dark matter is made of Kaluza-Klein particles and explore avenues for its detection. The lightest Kaluza-Klein state is an excellent dark matter candidate if standard model particles propagate in extra dimensions and Kaluza-Klein parity is conserved. We consider Kaluza-Klein gauge bosons. In sharp contrast to the case of supersymmetric dark matter, these annihilate to hard positrons, neutrinos and photons with unsuppressed rates. Direct detection signals are also promising. These conclusions are generic to bosonic dark matter candidates.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, discussion of spin-independent cross section clarified, references added, published versio

Effective Field Theory and Unification in AdS Backgrounds

This work is an extension of our previous work, hep-th/0204160, which showed how to systematically calculate the high energy evolution of gauge couplings in compact AdS_5 backgrounds. We first directly compute the one-loop effects of massive charged scalar fields on the low energy couplings of a gauge theory propagating in the AdS background. It is found that scalar bulk mass scales (which generically are of order the Planck scale) enter only logarithmically in the corrections to the tree-level gauge couplings. As we pointed out previously, we show that the large logarithms that appear in the AdS one-loop calculation can be obtained within the confines of an effective field theory, by running the Planck brane correlator from a high UV matching scale down to the TeV scale. This result exactly reproduces our previous calculation, which was based on AdS/CFT duality. We also calculate the effects of scalar fields satisfying non-trivial boundary conditions (relevant for orbifold breaking of bulk symmetries) on the running of gauge couplings.Comment: LaTeX, 27 pages; minor typos fixed, comments adde

Experimental constraints on a stringy SU(5)×\timesU(1) model

We re-examine the phenomenological aspects of a recently proposed string-derived SU(5)$\times$U(1) one-parameter supergravity model, and explore the sensitivity of the model predictions to variations in the strong coupling and the string unification scale. We also perform an analysis of the constraints on the parameter space of the model in light of the recent Tevatron trilepton data and the LEP~1.5 chargino and slepton data. We obtain m_{\chi^\pm_1}\gsim70\GeV, which excludes one-third of the parameter space of the model. The remainder of the parameter space should be probed by ongoing analyses of the Tevatron trilepton data and forthcoming LEP~2 runs.Comment: 12 pages, LaTeX, 4 figures (included) Slightly revised version to appear in Phys. Rev. D (May 1 issue); noted that trilepton searches cannot probe the full parameter space of the model because the leptons from neutralino decay become too soft to be detectabl

Infrared alignment of SUSY flavor structures

The various experimental bounds on flavor-changing interactions severely restrict the low-energy flavor structures of soft supersymmetry breaking parameters. In this work, we show that with a particular assumption of Yukawa couplings, the fermion mass and sfermion soft mass matrices are simultaneously diagonalized by common mixing matrices and we then obtain an alignment solution for the flavor problems. The required condition is generated by renormalization group evolutions and achieved at low-energy scale independently of high-energy structures of couplings. In this case, the diagonal entries of the soft scalar mass matrices are determined by gaugino and Higgs soft masses. We also discuss possible realizations of this scenario and the characteristic sparticle spectrum in the models.Comment: 18 pages, 1 figur

Compact Hyperbolic Extra Dimensions: Branes, Kaluza-Klein Modes and Cosmology

We reconsider theories with low gravitational (or string) scale M_* where Newton's constant is generated via new large-volume spatial dimensions, while Standard Model states are localized to a 3-brane. Utilizing compact hyperbolic manifolds (CHM's) we show that the spectrum of Kaluza-Klein (KK) modes is radically altered. This allows an early universe cosmology with normal evolution up to substantial temperatures, and completely negates the constraints on M_* arising from astrophysics. Furthermore, an exponential hierarchy between the usual Planck scale and the true fundamental scale of physics can emerge with only order unity coefficients. The linear size of the internal space remains small. The proposal has striking testable signatures.Comment: 4 pages, no figure

Indirect Collider Signals for Extra Dimensions

A recent suggestion that quantum gravity may become strong near the weak scale has several testable consequences. In addition to probing for the new large (submillimeter) extra dimensions associated with these theories via gravitational experiments, one could search for the Kaluza Klein towers of massive gravitons which are predicted in these models and which can interact with the fields of the Standard Model. Here we examine the indirect effects of these massive gravitons being exchanged in fermion pair production in \epem annihilation and Drell-Yan production at hadron colliders. In the latter case, we examine a novel feature of this theory, which is the contribution of gluon gluon initiated processes to lepton pair production. We find that these processes provide strong bounds, up to several TeV, on the string scale which are essentially independent of the number of extra dimensions. In addition, we analyze the angular distributions for fermion pair production with spin-2 graviton exchanges and demonstrate that they provide a smoking gun signal for low-scale quantum gravity which cannot be mimicked by other new physics scenarios.Comment: Corrected typos, added table and reference

A new scenario for string unification

We present a new scenario for gauge coupling unification in flipped SU(5) string models, which identifies the $M_{32}$ scale of SU(3) and SU(2) unification with the empirical $M_{\rm LEP}\sim10^{15-16}$~GeV scale, and the $M_{51}$ scale of SU(5) and U(1) unification with the theoretical $M_{\rm string}\sim5\times10^{17}$~GeV string unification scale. The vacuum shift necessary for the cancellation of the anomalous $\rm U_A(1)$ and an SU(4) hidden sector with fractionally-charged particles, play a crucial role in the dynamical determination of all intermediate mass scales in this scenario.Comment: 8 pages, LaTeX, 2 figures (uuencoded

Unitarity, BRST Symmetry and Ward Identities in Orbifold Gauge Theories

We discuss the use of BRST symmetry and the resulting Ward identities for orbifold gauge theories as consistency checks in an arbitrary number of dimensions. We verify that both the usual orbifold symmetry breaking and the recently proposed Higgsless symmetry breaking are consistent with the nilpotency of the BRST transformation. Imposing the Ward identities resulting from the BRST symmetry on the 4-point functions of theory, we obtain relations on the coupling constants that are shown to be equivalent to the conditions for tree level unitarity. We present the complete set of these sum rules also for inelastic scattering and discuss applications to 6-dimensional models and to incomplete matter multiplets on orbifold fixed points.Comment: 34 pages, LaTeX (feynmf.sty, url.sty and thophys.sty included), v2:references added, v3:typos corrected, sec.3 revise