Dilaton stabilization by massive fermion matter

The study started in a former work about the Dilaton mean field stabilization thanks to the effective potential generated by the existence of massive fermions, is here extended. Three loop corrections are evaluated in addition to the previously calculated two loop terms. The results indicate that the Dilaton vacuum field tend to be fixed at a high value close to the Planck scale, in accordance with the need for predicting Einstein gravity from string theory. The mass of the Dilaton is evaluated to be also a high value close to the Planck mass, which implies the absence of Dilaton scalar signals in modern cosmological observations. These properties arise when the fermion mass is chosen to be either at a lower bound corresponding to the top quark mass, or alternatively, at a very much higher value assumed to be in the grand unification energy range. One of the three 3-loop terms is exactly evaluated in terms of Master integrals. The other two graphs are however evaluated in their leading logarithm correction in the perturbative expansion. The calculation of the non leading logarithmic contribution and the inclusion of higher loops terms could made more precise the numerical estimates of the vacuum field value and masses, but seemingly are expected not to change the qualitative behavior obtained. The validity of the here employed Yukawa model approximation is argued for small value of the fermion masses with respect to the Planck one. A correction to the two loop calculation done in the previous work is here underlined.Comment: 18 pages, 5 figures, the study was extended and corrections on the former calculations and redaction were done. The paper had been accepted for publication in "Astrophysics and Space Science

Lovelock inflation and the number of large dimensions

We discuss an inflationary scenario based on Lovelock terms. These higher order curvature terms can lead to inflation when there are more than three spatial dimensions. Inflation will end if the extra dimensions are stabilised, so that at most three dimensions are free to expand. This relates graceful exit to the number of large dimensions.Comment: 16 pages, 1 figure. v2: published version, added clarification

Study of the Growth of Entropy Modes in MSSM Flat Directions Decay: Constraints on the Parameter Space

We study how the resonant decay of moduli fields arising in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) could affect large scale curvature perturbations in the early universe. It has been known for some time that the presence of entropy perturbations in a multi-component system can act as seeds for the curvature perturbations on all scales. These entropy perturbations could be amplified exponentially if one of the moduli decays via stochastic resonance, affecting the curvature power spectrum in the process. By imposing the COBE normalization on this power spectrum, one could put constraints on the masses and couplings of the underlying particle physics model without having to rely on collider experiments. We discuss in detail the case of the MSSM but this method could be applied to other theories beyond the Standard Model.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure, revtex4, comments added in section II, 1 reference adde

Unconventional Cosmology

I review two cosmological paradigms which are alternative to the current inflationary scenario. The first alternative is the "matter bounce", a non-singular bouncing cosmology with a matter-dominated phase of contraction. The second is an "emergent" scenario, which can be implemented in the context of "string gas cosmology". I will compare these scenarios with the inflationary one and demonstrate that all three lead to an approximately scale-invariant spectrum of cosmological perturbations.Comment: 45 pages, 10 figures; invited lectures at the 6th Aegean Summer School "Quantum Gravity and Quantum Cosmology", Chora, Naxos, Greece, Sept. 12 - 17 2012, to be publ. in the proceedings; these lecture notes form an updated version of arXiv:1003.1745 and arXiv:1103.227

Hawking radiation of nonsingular black holes in two dimensions

In this letter we study the process of Hawking radiation of a black hole assuming the existence of a limiting physical curvature scale. The particular model is constructed using the Limiting Curvature Hypothesis (LCH) and in the context of two-dimensional dilaton gravity. The black hole solution exhibits properties of the standard Schwarzschild solution at large values of the radial coordinate. However, near the center, the black hole is nonsingular and the metric becomes that of de Sitter spacetime. The Hawking temperature is calculated using the method of complex paths. We find that such black holes radiate eternally and never completely evaporate. The final state is an eternally radiating relic, near the fundamental scale, which should make a viable dark matter candidate. We briefly comment on the black hole information loss problem and the production of such black holes in collider experiments.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures; minor revisions; references added; version to appear in JHE

Looking Beyond Inflationary Cosmology

In spite of the phenomenological successes of the inflationary universe scenario, the current realizations of inflation making use of scalar fields lead to serious conceptual problems which are reviewed in this lecture. String theory may provide an avenue towards addressing these problems. One particular approach to combining string theory and cosmology is String Gas Cosmology. The basic principles of this approach are summarized.Comment: invited talk at "Theory Canada 1" (Univ. of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, June 2 - 4, 2005) (references updated

Supersymmetry Breaking and Dilaton Stabilization in String Gas Cosmology

In this Note we study supersymmetry breaking via gaugino condensation in string gas cosmology. We show that the same gaugino condensate which is introduced to stabilize the dilaton breaks supersymmetry. We study the constraints on the scale of supersymmetry breaking which this mechanism leads to.Comment: 11 page

Scattering off an SO(10) cosmic string

The scattering of fermions from the abelian string arising during the phase transition $SO(10) \rightarrow SU(5) \times Z_2$ induced by the Higgs in the 126 representation is studied. Elastic cross-sections and baryon number violating cross-sections due to the coupling to gauge fields in the core of the string are computed by both a first quantised method and a perturbative second quantised method. The elastic cross-sections are found to be Aharonov-Bohm type. However, there is a marked asymmetry between the scattering cross-sections for left and right handed fields. The catalysis cross-sections are small, depending on the grand unified scale. If cosmic strings were observed our results could help tie down the underlying gauge group.Comment: 20 page

The Coherent State Representation of Quantum Fluctuations in the Early Universe

Using the squeezed state formalism the coherent state representation of quantum fluctuations in an expanding universe is derived. It is shown that this provides a useful alternative to the Wigner function as a phase space representation of quantum fluctuations. The quantum to classical transition of fluctuations is naturally implemented by decohering the density matrix in this representation. The entropy of the decohered vacua is derived. It is shown that the decoherence process breaks the physical equivalence between vacua that differ by a coordinate dependent phase generated by a surface term in the Lagrangian. In particular, scale invariant power spectra are only obtained for a special choice of surface term.Comment: 25 pages in revtex 3. This version is completely revised with corrections and significant new calculation

DBI with Primordial Magnetic Field in the Sky

In this paper, we study the generation of a large scale magnetic field with amplitude of order $\mu$G in an inflationary model which has been introduced in hep-th/0310221. This inflationary model based on existence of a speed limit for inflaton field. Generating a mass for inflaton at scale above the $\phi_{IR}$, breaks the conformal triviality of the Maxwell equation and causes to originate a magnetic field during the inflation. The amplitude strongly depends on the details of reheating stage and also depends on the e-foldings parameter N. We find the amplitude of the primordial magnetic field at decoupling time in this inflationary background using late time behavior of the theory.Comment: 12 pages, no figure, typos correcte