2,567 research outputs found
String Propagation through a Big Crunch/Big Bang Transition
We consider the propagation of classical and quantum strings on cosmological
space-times which interpolate from a collapsing phase to an expanding phase. We
begin by considering the classical propagation of strings on space-times with
isotropic and anisotropic cosmological singularities. We find that cosmological
singularities fall into two classes, in the first class the string evolution is
well behaved all the way up to the singularity, whilst in the second class it
becomes ill-defined. Then assuming the singularities are regulated by string
scale corrections, we consider the implications of the propagation through a
`bounce'. It is known that as we evolve through a bounce, quantum strings will
become excited giving rise to `particle transmutation'. We reconsider this
effect, giving qualitative arguments for the amount of excitation for each
class. We find that strings whose physical wavelength at the bounce is less
that inevitably emerge in highly excited states, and that in
this regime there is an interesting correspondence between strings on
anisotropic cosmological space-times and plane waves. We argue that long
wavelength modes, such as those describing cosmological perturbations, will
also emerge in mildly excited string scale mass states. Finally we discuss the
relevance of this to the propagation of cosmological perturbations in models
such as the ekpyrotic/cyclic universe.Comment: 15 page
Scaling Solutions to 6D Gauged Chiral Supergravity
We construct explicitly time-dependent exact solutions to the field equations
of 6D gauged chiral supergravity, compactified to 4D in the presence of up to
two 3-branes situated within the extra dimensions. The solutions we find are
scaling solutions, and are plausibly attractors which represent the late-time
evolution of a broad class of initial conditions. By matching their near-brane
boundary conditions to physical brane properties we argue that these solutions
(together with the known maximally-symmetric solutions and a new class of
non-Lorentz-invariant static solutions, which we also present here) describe
the bulk geometry between a pair of 3-branes with non-trivial on-brane
equations of state.Comment: Contribution to the New Journal of Physics focus issue on Dark
Energy; 28 page
The cosmic gravitational wave background in a cyclic universe
Inflation predicts a primordial gravitational wave spectrum that is slightly
``red,'' i.e., nearly scale-invariant with slowly increasing power at longer
wavelengths. In this paper, we compute both the amplitude and spectral form of
the primordial tensor spectrum predicted by cyclic/ekpyrotic models. The
spectrum is blue and exponentially suppressed compared to inflation on long
wavelengths. The strongest observational constraint emerges from the
requirement that the energy density in gravitational waves should not exceed
around 10 per cent of the energy density at the time of nucleosynthesis.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figuer
Flux compactifications and supersymmetry breaking in 6D gauged supergravity
We review on a recent construction of the on-shell supersymmetric brane
action for the codimension-two branes with nonzero tension in the flux
compactification of a 6D chiral gauged supergravity. On dimesionally reducing
on 4D gauged supergravity for a new supersymmetric unwarped background with
conical branes, we consider the modulus stabilization for determining the soft
masses of the scalars localized on the branes and show that the bulk U(1)_R
provides a new mechanism for mediating the SUSY breaking.Comment: 12 pages, no figures, Invited review for Modern Physics Letters A,
Published versio
Supersymmetric codimension-two branes in six-dimensional gauged supergravity
We consider the six-dimensional Salam-Sezgin supergravity in the presence of
codimension-2 branes. In the case that the branes carry only tension, we
provide a way to supersymmetrise them by adding appropriate localised
Fayet-Iliopoulos terms and localised corrections to the Chern-Simons term and
modifying accordingly the fermionic supersymmetry transformations. The
resulting brane action has N=1 supersymmetry (SUSY). We find the axisymmetric
vacua of the system and show that one has unwarped background solutions with
"football"-shaped extra dimensions which always respect N=1 SUSY for any value
of the equal brane tensions, in contrast with the non-supersymmetric brane
action background. Finally, we generically find multiple zero modes of the
gravitino in this background and discuss how one could obtain a single chiral
zero mode present in the low energy spectrum.Comment: 21 pages, no figures, A sign error in the gauge potential at the
lower brane corrected and its consequent effect discusse
Kicking the Rugby Ball: Perturbations of 6D Gauged Chiral Supergravity
We analyze the axially-symmetric scalar perturbations of 6D chiral gauged
supergravity compactified on the general warped geometries in the presence of
two source branes. We find all of the conical geometries are marginally stable
for normalizable perturbations (in disagreement with some recent calculations)
and the nonconical for regular perturbations, even though none of them are
supersymmetric (apart from the trivial Salam-Sezgin solution, for which there
are no source branes). The marginal direction is the one whose presence is
required by the classical scaling property of the field equations, and all
other modes have positive squared mass. In the special case of the conical
solutions, including (but not restricted to) the unwarped `rugby-ball'
solutions, we find closed-form expressions for the mode functions in terms of
Legendre and Hypergeometric functions. In so doing we show how to match the
asymptotic near-brane form for the solution to the physics of the source
branes, and thereby how to physically interpret perturbations which can be
singular at the brane positions.Comment: 21 pages + appendices, references adde
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