Related papers: Higher order terms in an improved heterotic M theo…
The gravitational collapse in fourth order theories of gravity defined by an arbitrary action of the scalar curvature shows significant deviations with General Relativity. The presence of a new scalar mode produces a higher initial…
Compactification of the heterotic string on toroidal orbifolds is a promising set-up for the construction of realistic unified models of particle physics. The target space dynamics of such models, however, drives them slightly away from the…
We construct the quartic version of generalized quasi-topological gravity, which was recently constructed to cubic order in arXiv: 1703.01631. This class of theories includes Lovelock gravity and a known form of quartic quasi-topological…
An overview is given of the way in which the unification program of particle physics has evolved into the proposal of superstring theory as a prime candidate for unifying quantum gravity with the other forces and particles of nature. A key…
This contribution briefly describes some developments of the use of string symmetries and anomaly cancellation mechanisms to include string loop corrections in the construction of the low-energy effective supergravity of superstrings.…
Recent criticism of higher-dimensional extensions of Einstein's theory is considered. This may have some justification as regards string theory, but is misguided as applied to five-dimensional theories with a large extra dimension. Such…
In a recent paper, we have a shown that the flattening of galactic rotation curves can be explained by retardation. However, this will rely on a temporal change of galactic mass. In our previous work, we kept only second order terms of the…
We investigate cosmic censorship in anti-de Sitter space in holographic models in which the ground state is described by a good singularity. These include supersymmetric truncations of string/M-theory, for which a positive-energy theorem…
We show that the introduction of a minimal length in the context of non-commutative spacetime gives rise (after some considerations) to higher-order theories. We then explicitly demonstrate how these higher-derivative theories appear as a…
We start from a new theory (discussed earlier) in which the arena for physics is not spacetime, but its straightforward extension-the so called Clifford space ($C$-space), a manifold of points, lines, areas, etc..; physical quantities are…
Recent advances in our understanding of higher derived limits carry multiple implications in the fields of condensed and pyknotic mathematics, as well as for the study of strong homology. These implications are thematically diverse,…
We show that the instabilities of higher derivative gravity models with quadratic curvature invariant $\alpha R^2+\beta R_{\mu\nu}R^{\mu\nu}$ can be removed by judicious addition of constraints at the quadratic level of metric fluctuations…
The addition of boundary counterterms to the gravitational action of asymptotically anti-de Sitter spacetimes permits us to define the partition function unambiguously without background subtraction. We show that the inclusion of p-form…
In this work we study the cancellation of non-perturbative anomalies of gravitational theories with gauge group $\mathbb{Z}_k$ in six dimensions. These subtle anomalies require a classification of deformation classes of manifolds with…
The issues of quintessence and cosmic acceleration can be discussed in the framework of higher order curvature and torsion theories of gravity. We can define effective pressure and energy density directly connected to the curvature or to…
The superform construction of supersymmetric invariants, which consists of integrating the top component of a closed superform over spacetime, is reviewed. The cohomological methods necessary for the analysis of closed superforms are…
The low-energy effective theories describing string compactifications in the presence of fluxes are so-called gauged supergravities: deformations of the standard abelian supergravity theories. The deformation parameters can be identified…
In these lectures, after a short introduction to cosmology, we discuss the supergravity embedding of higher curvature models of inflation. The supergravity description of such models is presented for the two different formulations of…
We consider solutions to the $\mu$-problem originating in the effective low energy theories, of N=1 orbifold compactifications of the heterotic string, after supersymmetry breaking. They are consistent with the invariance of the one loop…
We consider the possible consistent truncation of N-extended supergravities to lower N' theories. The truncation, unlike the case of N-extended rigid theories, is non trivial and only in some cases it is sufficient just to delete the extra…