282 research outputs found
Modified Gravity via Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking
We construct effective field theories in which gravity is modified via
spontaneous breaking of local Lorentz invariance. This is a gravitational
analogue of the Higgs mechanism. These theories possess additional graviton
modes and modified dispersion relations. They are manifestly well-behaved in
the UV and free of discontinuities of the van Dam-Veltman-Zakharov type,
ensuring compatibility with standard tests of gravity. They may have important
phenomenological effects on large distance scales, offering an alternative to
dark energy. For the case in which the symmetry is broken by a vector field
with the wrong sign mass term, we identify four massless graviton modes (all
with positive-definite norm for a suitable choice of a parameter) and show the
absence of the discontinuity.Comment: 5 pages; revised versio
The Shapes of Dirichlet Defects
If the vacuum manifold of a field theory has the appropriate topological
structure, the theory admits topological structures analogous to the D-branes
of string theory, in which defects of one dimension terminate on other defects
of higher dimension. The shapes of such defects are analyzed numerically, with
special attention paid to the intersection regions. Walls (co-dimension 1
branes) terminating on other walls, global strings (co-dimension 2 branes) and
local strings (including gauge fields) terminating on walls are all considered.
Connections to supersymmetric field theories, string theory and condensed
matter systems are pointed out.Comment: 24 pages, RevTeX, 21 eps figure
Bubbles from Nothing
Within the framework of flux compactifications, we construct an instanton
describing the quantum creation of an open universe from nothing. The solution
has many features in common with the smooth 6d bubble of nothing solutions
discussed recently, where the spacetime is described by a 4d compactification
of a 6d Einstein-Maxwell theory on S^2 stabilized by flux. The four-dimensional
description of this instanton reduces to that of Hawking and Turok. The choice
of parameters uniquely determines all future evolution, which we additionally
find to be stable against bubble of nothing instabilities.Comment: 19 pages, 6 figure
Conformal Tightness of Holographic Scaling in Black Hole Thermodynamics
The near-horizon conformal symmetry of nonextremal black holes is shown to be
a mandatory ingredient for the holographic scaling of the scalar-field
contribution to the black hole entropy. This conformal tightness is revealed by
semiclassical first-principle scaling arguments through an analysis of the
multiplicative factors in the entropy due to the radial and angular degrees of
freedom associated with a scalar field. Specifically, the conformal SO(2,1)
invariance of the radial degree of freedom conspires with the area
proportionality of the angular momentum sums to yield a robust holographic
outcome.Comment: 23 pages, 1 figure. v2 & v3: expanded explanations and proofs,
references added, typos corrected; v3: published versio
Integrability in SFT and new representation of KP tau-function
We are investigating the properties of vacuum and boundary states in the CFT
of free bosons under the conformal transformation. We show that transformed
vacuum (boundary state) is given in terms of tau-functions of dispersionless KP
(Toda) hierarchies. Applications of this approach to string field theory is
considered. We recognize in Neumann coefficients the matrix of second
derivatives of tau-function of dispersionless KP and identify surface states
with the conformally transformed vacuum of free field theory.Comment: 25 pp, LaTeX, reference added in the Section 3.
Dual Resonance Model Solves the Yang-Baxter Equation
The duality of dual resonance models is shown to imply that the four point
string correlation function solves the Yang-Baxter equation. A reduction of
transfer matrices to symmetry is described by a restriction of the KP
function to Toda molecules.Comment: 10 pages, LaTe
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