A Terminal Velocity on the Landscape: Particle Production near Extra Species Loci in Higher Dimensions

We investigate particle production near extra species loci (ESL) in a higher dimensional field space and derive a speed limit in moduli space at weak coupling. This terminal velocity is set by the characteristic ESL-separation and the coupling of the extra degrees of freedom to the moduli, but it is independent of the moduli's potential if the dimensionality of the field space is considerably larger than the dimensionality of the loci, D >> d. Once the terminal velocity is approached, particles are produced at a plethora of nearby ESLs, preventing a further increase in speed via their backreaction. It is possible to drive inflation at the terminal velocity, providing a generalization of trapped inflation with attractive features: we find that more than sixty e-folds of inflation for sub-Planckian excursions in field space are possible if ESLs are ubiquitous, without fine tuning of initial conditions and less tuned potentials. We construct a simple, observationally viable model with a slightly red scalar power-spectrum and suppressed gravitational waves; we comment on the presence of additional observational signatures originating from IR-cascading and individual massive particles. We also show that moduli-trapping at an ESL is suppressed for D >> d, hindering dynamical selection of high-symmetry vacua on the landscape based on this mechanism.Comment: 46 pages, 6 figures. V3: typos corrected compared to JHEP version, conclusions unchange

Higher Dimensional Cylindrical or Kasner Type Electrovacuum Solutions

We consider a D dimensional Kasner type diagonal spacetime where metric functions depend only on a single coordinate and electromagnetic field shares the symmetries of spacetime. These solutions can describe static cylindrical or cosmological Einstein-Maxwell vacuum spacetimes. We mainly focus on electrovacuum solutions and four different types of solutions are obtained in which one of them has no four dimensional counterpart. We also consider the properties of the general solution corresponding to the exterior field of a charged line mass and discuss its several properties. Although it resembles the same form with four dimensional one, there is a difference on the range of the solutions for fixed signs of the parameters. General magnetic field vacuum solution are also briefly discussed, which reduces to Bonnor-Melvin magnetic universe for a special choice of the parameters. The Kasner forms of the general solution are also presented for the cylindrical or cosmological cases.Comment: 16 pages, Revtex. Text and references are extended, Published versio

ALPs effective field theory and collider signatures

We study the leading effective interactions between the Standard Model fields and a generic singlet CP-odd (pseudo-) Goldstone boson. Two possible frameworks for electroweak symmetry breaking are considered: linear and non-linear. For the latter case, the basis of leading effective operators is determined and compared with that for the linear expansion. Associated phenomenological signals at colliders are explored for both scenarios, deriving new bounds and analyzing future prospects, including LHC and High Luminosity LHC sensitivities. Mono-Z, mono-W, W-photon plus missing energy and on-shell top final states are most promising signals expected in both frameworks. In addition, non-standard Higgs decays and mono-Higgs signatures are especially prominent and expected to be dominant in non-linear realisations

Brane inflation: From superstring to cosmic strings

Brane inflation, where branes move towards each other in the brane world, has been shown to be quite natural in superstring theory. Inflation ends when branes collide and heat the universe, initiating the hot big bang. Cosmic strings (but not domain walls or monopoles) are copiously produced during the brane collision. Using the COBE data on the temperature anisotropy in the cosmic microwave background, the cosmic string tension mu is estimated to be around 10(-6) > Gmu > 10(-11), while the present observational bound is 7 x 10(-7) > Qmu. This implies that the anisotropy that seeds structure formation comes mostly from inflation, but with a small component (< 10%) from cosmic string effects. This cosmic string effect should be testable in the near future via gravitational lensing, the cosmic microwave background radiation, and/or gravitational wave detectors like LIGO II/VIRGO

Brane world cosmology: From superstring to cosmic strings

Brane inflation, where branes move towards each other, has been shown to be very robust. Inflation ends when branes collide and heat the universe. Towards the end of the brane inflationary epoch in the brane world, a complex tachyon field appears. As the tachyon rolls down its potential, cosmic strings (but not domain walls or monopoles) are copiously produced during brane collision. These cosmic strings are Dp-branes with (p - 1) dimensions compactified. Using the COBE data on the temperature anisotropy in the cosmic microwave background, the cosmic string tension p is estimated to be around G mu similar or equal to 10(-7). This in turn implies that the anisotropy in the cosmic microwave background comes mostly from inflation, but with a component (of order 10%) from cosmic strings. This can be tested by MAP and PLANCK. This cosmic string effect should also be observable in gravitational wave detectors like LIGO II/VIRGO and LISA