631 research outputs found
Nonsupersymmetric brane vacua in stabilized compactifications
We derive the equations for the nonsupersymmetric vacua of D3-branes in the
presence of nonperturbative moduli stabilization in type IIB flux
compactifications, and solve and analyze them in the case of two particular
7-brane embeddings at the bottom of the warped deformed conifold. In the limit
of large volume and long throat, we obtain vacua by imposing a constraint on
the 7-brane embedding. These vacua fill out continuous spaces of higher
dimension than the corresponding supersymmetric vacua, and have negative
effective cosmological constant. Perturbative stability of these vacua is
possible but not generic. Finally, we argue that anti-D3-branes at the tip of
the conifold share the same vacua as D3-branes.Comment: 17 pages, 1 figure, LaTeX. v2: references added, typo fixed. v3:
version appearing in JHE
Brane/flux annihilation transitions and nonperturbative moduli stabilization
By extending the calculation of Kahler moduli stabilization to account for an
embiggened antibrane, we reevaluate brane/flux annihilation in a warped throat
with one stabilized Kahler modulus. We find that depending on the relative size
of various fluxes three things can occur: the decay process proceeds
unhindered, the anti-D3-branes are forbidden to decay classically, or the
entire space decompactifies. Additionally, we show that the Kahler modulus
receives a contribution from the collective 3-brane tension. This allows for a
significant change in compactified volume during the transition and possibly
mitigates some fine tuning otherwise required to achieve large volume.Comment: 25 pages, 6 figures, LaTeX. v2: references adde
The Giant Inflaton
We investigate a new mechanism for realizing slow roll inflation in string
theory, based on the dynamics of p anti-D3 branes in a class of mildly warped
flux compactifications. Attracted to the bottom of a warped conifold throat,
the anti-branes then cluster due to a novel mechanism wherein the background
flux polarizes in an attempt to screen them. Once they are sufficiently close,
the M units of flux cause the anti-branes to expand into a fuzzy NS5-brane,
which for rather generic choices of p/M will unwrap around the geometry,
decaying into D3-branes via a classical process. We find that the effective
potential governing this evolution possesses several epochs that can
potentially support slow-roll inflation, provided the process can be arranged
to take place at a high enough energy scale, of about one or two orders of
magnitude below the Planck energy; this scale, however, lies just outside the
bounds of our approximations.Comment: 31 pages, 4 figures, LaTeX. v2: references added, typos fixe
F-term uplifting via consistent D-terms
The issue of fine-tuning necessary to achieve satisfactory degree of
hierarchy between moduli masses, the gravitino mass and the scale of the
cosmological constant has been revisited in the context of supergravities with
consistent D-terms. We have studied (extended) racetrack models where
supersymmetry breaking and moduli stabilisation cannot be separated from each
other. We show that even in such cases the realistic hierarchy can be achieved
on the expense of a single fine-tuning. The presence of two condensates changes
the role of the constant term in the superpotential, W_0, and solutions with
small vacuum energy and large gravitino mass can be found even for very small
values of W_0. Models where D-terms are allowed to vanish at finite vevs of
moduli fields - denoted `cancellable' D-terms - and the ones where D-terms may
vanish only at infinite vevs of some moduli - denoted `non-cancellable' -
differ markedly in their properties. It turns out that the tuning with respect
to the Planck scale required in the case of cancellable D-terms is much weaker
than in the case of non-cancellable ones. We have shown that, against
intuition, a vanishing D-term can trigger F-term uplifting of the vacuum energy
due to the stringent constraint it imposes on vacuum expectation values of
charged fields. Finally we note that our models only rely on two dimensionful
parameters: M_P and W_0.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures, plain Latex, references adde
ASTRO-F - The next generation of mid-infrared surveys
We present basic observational strategies for ASTRO-F (also known as the
Imaging Infra Red Surveyor (IRIS)) to be launched in 2004 by the Japanese
Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS). We examine 2 survey
scenarios, a deep ~1sq.deg. survey reaching sensitivities an order of magnitude
below than the deepest surveys performed by ISO in the mid-IR, and a shallow
\~18sq.deg mid-infrared (7-25um in 6 bands) covering an area greater than the
entire area covered by all ISO mid-IR surveys. Using 2 cosmological models the
number of galaxies predicted for each survey is calculated. The first model
uses an enhancement of the pure luminosity evolution model of Pearson &
Rowan-Robinson while the new models incorporate a strongly evolving ULIG
component. For the deep survey, between 20,000-30,000 galaxies should be
detected in the shortest wavebands and ~5000 in the longest (25um) band. The
shallow survey would be expected to detect of the order of 100,000 - 150,000
sources.Comment: 17 pages, 13 figures, accepted by MNRA
Modeling the high-pressure behavior of binary mixtures of carbon dioxide+alkanols using an excess free energy mixing rule
Theory of output coupling for trapped fermionic atoms
We develop a dynamic theory of output coupling, for fermionic atoms initially
confined in a magnetic trap. We consider an exactly soluble one-dimensional
model, with a spatially localized delta-type coupling between the atoms in the
trap and a continuum of free-particle external modes. Two important special
cases are considered for the confinement potential: the infinite box and the
harmonic oscillator. We establish that in both cases a bound state of the
coupled system appears for any value of the coupling constant, implying that
the trap population does not vanish in the infinite-time limit. For weak
coupling, the energy spectrum of the outgoing beam exhibits peaks corresponding
to the initially occupied energy levels in the trap; the height of these peaks
increases with the energy. As the coupling gets stronger, the energy spectrum
is displaced towards dressed energies of the fermions in the trap. The
corresponding dressed states result from the coupling between the unperturbed
fermionic states in the trap, mediated by the coupling between these states and
the continuum. In the strong-coupling limit, there is a reinforcement of the
lowest-energy dressed mode, which contributes to the energy spectrum of the
outgoing beam more strongly than the other modes. This effect is especially
pronounced for the one-dimensional box, which indicates that the efficiency of
the mode-reinforcement mechanism depends on the steepness of the confinement
potential. In this case, a quasi-monochromatic anti-bunched atomic beam is
obtained. Results for a bosonic sample are also shown for comparison.Comment: 16 pages, 7 figures, added discussion on time-dependent spectral
distribution and corresponding figur
Socioeconomic position, lifestyle habits and biomarkers of epigenetic aging: a multi-cohort analysis
Differences in health status by socioeconomic position (SEP) tend to be more evident at older ages, suggesting
the involvement of a biological mechanism responsive to the accumulation of deleterious exposures across the
lifespan. DNA methylation (DNAm) has been proposed as a biomarker of biological aging that conserves
memory of endogenous and exogenous stress during life.
We examined the association of education level, as an indicator of SEP, and lifestyle-related variables with four
biomarkers of age-dependent DNAm dysregulation: the total number of stochastic epigenetic mutations (SEMs)
and three epigenetic clocks (Horvath, Hannum and Levine), in 18 cohorts spanning 12 countries.
The four biological aging biomarkers were associated with education and different sets of risk factors
independently, and the magnitude of the effects differed depending on the biomarker and the predictor. On
average, the effect of low education on epigenetic aging was comparable with those of other lifestyle-related
risk factors (obesity, alcohol intake), with the exception of smoking, which had a significantly stronger effect.
Our study shows that low education is an independent predictor of accelerated biological (epigenetic) aging
and that epigenetic clocks appear to be good candidates for disentangling the biological pathways underlying
social inequalities in healthy aging and longevity
Type IIA Moduli Stabilization
We demonstrate that flux compactifications of type IIA string theory can
classically stabilize all geometric moduli. For a particular orientifold
background, we explicitly construct an infinite family of supersymmetric vacua
with all moduli stabilized at arbitrarily large volume, weak coupling, and
small negative cosmological constant. We obtain these solutions from both
ten-dimensional and four-dimensional perspectives. For more general
backgrounds, we study the equations for supersymmetric vacua coming from the
effective superpotential and show that all geometric moduli can be stabilized
by fluxes. We comment on the resulting picture of statistics on the landscape
of vacua.Comment: 48 pages, 2 figures, LaTeX. v2: references added. v3: minor comments
& references adde
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