English

\$tring Theory and an Accelerating Universe

High Energy Physics - Theory 2007-05-23 v1 Astrophysics General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology High Energy Physics - Phenomenology

Abstract

An accelerating Universe can be accommodated naturally within non-critical string theory, in which scattering is described by a superscattering matrix $ that does not factorize as a product of SS- and SS^\dagger-matrix elements and time evolution is described by a modified Liouville equation characteristic of open quantum-mechanical systems. We describe briefly alternative representations in terms of the stochastic Ito and Fokker-Planck equations. The link between the vacuum energy and the departure from criticality is stressed. We give an explicit example in which non-marginal $tring couplings cause a departure from criticality, and the corresponding cosmological vacuum energy relaxes to zero \`a la quintessence.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.hep-th/0105206,
  title  = {\$tring Theory and an Accelerating Universe},
  author = {John Ellis and N. E. Mavromatos and D. V. Nanopoulos},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:hep-th/0105206},
  year   = {2007}
}

Comments

11 pages LATEX, one eps figure incorporated

R2 v1 2026-07-22T15:04:18.189Z