80 research outputs found
The Price of WMAP Inflation in Supergravity
The three-year data from WMAP are in stunning agreement with the simplest
possible quadratic potential for chaotic inflation, as well as with new or
symmetry-breaking inflation. We investigate the possibilities for incorporating
these potentials within supergravity, particularly of the no-scale type that is
motivated by string theory. Models with inflation driven by the matter sector
may be constructed in no-scale supergravity, if the moduli are assumed to be
stabilised by some higher-scale dynamics and at the expense of some
fine-tuning. We discuss specific scenarios for stabilising the moduli via
either D- or F-terms in the effective potential, and survey possible
inflationary models in the presence of D-term stabilisation.Comment: 15 pages, 6 figures, plain Late
Kahler potentials for the MSSM inflation and the spectral index
Recently it has been argued that some of the fine-tuning problems of the MSSM
inflation associated with the existence of a saddle point along a flat
direction may be solved naturally in a class of supergravity models. Here we
extend the analysis and show that the constraints on the Kahler potentials in
these models are considerably relaxed when the location of the saddle point is
treated as a free variable. We also examine the effect of supergravity
corrections on inflationary predictions and find that they can slightly alter
the value of the spectral index. As an example, for flat direction field values
we find while the
prediction of the MSSM inflation without any corrections is .Comment: 13 pages, one figure. Typos corrected and a reference adde
Volume modulus inflation and a low scale of SUSY breaking
The relation between the Hubble constant and the scale of supersymmetry
breaking is investigated in models of inflation dominated by a string modulus.
Usually in this kind of models the gravitino mass is of the same order of
magnitude as the Hubble constant which is not desirable from the
phenomenological point of view. It is shown that slow-roll saddle point
inflation may be compatible with a low scale of supersymmetry breaking only if
some corrections to the lowest order Kahler potential are taken into account.
However, choosing an appropriate Kahler potential is not enough. There are also
conditions for the superpotential, and e.g. the popular racetrack
superpotential turns out to be not suitable. A model is proposed in which
slow-roll inflation and a light gravitino are compatible. It is based on a
superpotential with a triple gaugino condensation and the Kahler potential with
the leading string corrections. The problem of fine tuning and experimental
constraints are discussed for that model.Comment: 28 pages, 8 figures, comments and references added, minor change in
notation, version to be publishe
Pre-big bang model has Planck problem
The pre-big bang's kinetic driven inflationary mechanism is not an adequate
form of inflation: the Planck length grows more rapidly than the scale factor.
In order to explain our large universe, the resulting post-big bang universe
requires the same unnatural constants (Planck problem) as those of any other
non-inflationary big bang model.Comment: figures not include
Gluino Condensation in Strongly Coupled Heterotic String Theory
Strongly coupled heterotic string theory, compactified to
four dimensions on a large Calabi-Yau manifold , may represent a
viable candidate for the description of low-energy particle phenomenology. In
this regime, heterotic string theory is adequately described by low-energy
-theory on , with the two
's supported at the two boundaries of the world. In this paper we study
the effects of gluino condensation, as a mechanism for supersymmetry breaking
in this -theory regime. We show that when a gluino condensate forms in
-theory, the conditions for unbroken supersymmetry can still be satisfied
locally in the orbifold dimension . Supersymmetry is then
only broken by the global topology of the orbifold dimension, in a mechanism
similar to the Casimir effect. This mechanism leads to a natural hierarchy of
scales, and elucidates some aspects of heterotic string theory that might be
relevant to the stabilization of moduli and the smallness of the cosmological
constant.Comment: 22 pages, harvmac, no figure
Preheating After Modular Inflation
We study (p)reheating in modular (closed string) inflationary scenarios, with
a special emphasis on Kahler moduli/Roulette models. It is usually assumed that
reheating in such models occurs through perturbative decays. However, we find
that there are very strong non-perturbative preheating decay channels related
to the particular shape of the inflaton potential (which is highly nonlinear
and has a very steep minimum). Preheating after modular inflation, proceeding
through a combination of tachyonic instability and broad-band parametric
resonance, is perhaps the most violent example of preheating after inflation
known in the literature. Further, we consider the subsequent transfer of energy
to the standard model sector in scenarios where the standard model particles
are confined to a D7-brane wrapping the inflationary blow-up cycle of the
compactification manifold or, more interestingly, a non-inflationary blow up
cycle. We explicitly identify the decay channels of the inflaton in these two
scenarios. We also consider the case where the inflationary cycle shrinks to
the string scale at the end of inflation; here a field theoretical treatment of
reheating is insufficient and one must turn instead to a stringy description.
We estimate the decay rate of the inflaton and the reheat temperature for
various scenarios.Comment: 34 pages, 10 figures. Accepted for publication in JCA
Phenomenology of Non-Standard Embedding and Five-branes in M-Theory
We study the phenomenology of the strong-coupling limit of
heterotic string obtained from M-theory, using a Calabi-Yau compactification.
After summarizing the standard embedding results, we concentrate on
non-standard embedding vacua as well as vacua where non-perturbative objects as
five-branes are present. We analyze in detail the different scales of the
theory, eleven-dimensional Planck mass, compactification scale, orbifold scale,
and how they are related taking into account higher order corrections. To
obtain the phenomenologically favored GUT scale is easier than in standard
embedding vacua. To lower this scale to intermediate ( GeV) or
1 TeV values or to obtain the radius of the orbifold as large as a millimetre
is possible. However, we point out that these special limits are unnatural.
Finally, we perform a systematic analysis of the soft supersymmetry-breaking
terms. We point out that scalar masses larger than gaugino masses can easily be
obtained unlike the standard embedding case and the weakly-coupled heterotic
string.Comment: Discussions about bounds on and simplified, minor
misprints corrected, more references added. Final results unchange
Non-standard embedding and five-branes in heterotic M-Theory
We construct vacua of M-theory on S^1/Z_2 associated with Calabi-Yau
three-folds. These vacua are appropriate for compactification to N=1
supersymmetry theories in both four and five dimensions. We allow for general
E_8 x E_8 gauge bundles and for the presence of five-branes. The five-branes
span the four-dimensional uncompactified space and are wrapped on holomorphic
curves in the Calabi-Yau space. Properties of these vacua, as well as of the
resulting low-energy theories, are discussed. We find that the low-energy gauge
group is enlarged by gauge fields that originate on the five-brane
world-volumes. In addition, the five-branes increase the types of new E_8 x E_8
breaking patterns allowed by the non-standard embedding. Characteristic
features of the low-energy theory, such as the threshold corrections to the
gauge kinetic functions, are significantly modified due to the presence of the
five-branes, as compared to the case of standard or non-standard embeddings
without five-branes.Comment: 34 pages, Latex 2e with amsmath, typos removed, factors corrected,
refs improve
Non-linear isocurvature perturbations and non-Gaussianities
We study non-linear primordial adiabatic and isocurvature perturbations and
their non-Gaussianity. After giving a general formulation in the context of an
extended delta N-formalism, we analyse in detail two illustrative examples. The
first is a mixed curvaton-inflaton scenario in which fluctuations of both the
inflaton and a curvaton (a light isocurvature field during inflation)
contribute to the primordial density perturbation. The second example is that
of double inflation involving two decoupled massive scalar fields during
inflation. In the mixed curvaton-inflaton scenario we find that the bispectrum
of primordial isocurvature perturbations may be large and comparable to the
bispectrum of adiabatic curvature perturbations.Comment: 24 pages, typos corrected, references adde
A Comparison of Supersymmetry Breaking and Mediation Mechanisms
We give a unified treatment of different models of supersymmetry breaking and
mediation from a four dimensional effective field theory standpoint. In
particular a comparison between GMSB and various gravity mediated versions of
SUSY breaking shows that, once the former is embedded within a SUGRA framework,
there is no particular advantage to that mechanism from the point of view of
FCNC suppression. We point out the difficulties of all these scenarios - in
particular the cosmological modulus problem. We end with a discussion of
possible string theory realizations.Comment: Added clarifications and references, 20 page
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