English

Brane Annihilations during Inflation

High Energy Physics - Theory 2014-11-20 v3 Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology

Abstract

We investigate brane inflation driven by two stacks of mobile branes in a throat. The stack closest to the bottom of the throat annihilates first with antibranes, resulting in particle production and a change of the equation of state parameter w. We calculate analytically some observable signatures of the collision; related decays are common in multi-field inflation, providing the motivation for this case study. The discontinuity in w enters the matching conditions relating perturbations in the remaining degree of freedom before and after the collision, affecting the power-spectrum of curvature perturbations. We find an oscillatory modulation of the power-spectrum for scales within the horizon at the time of the collision, and a slightly redder spectrum on super-horizon scales. We comment on implications for staggered inflation.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1004.1417,
  title  = {Brane Annihilations during Inflation},
  author = {Diana Battefeld and Thorsten Battefeld and Hassan Firouzjahi and Nima Khosravi},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1004.1417},
  year   = {2014}
}

Comments

29 pages, 5 figures; v3: slightly extended explanations, conclusions unchanged

R2 v1 2026-06-21T15:08:14.174Z