Related papers: From Axions to Other WISPs
We explore the possibility that (Bose-Einstein) condensation of scalar fields from string compactifications can lead to long-lived compact objects. Depending on the type of scalar fields we find different realisations of star-like and…
We propose a novel observational strategy for the detection of pseudoaxions, emerging as transient resonances tied explicitly to the evolution of internal geometry in string theory and brane-world cosmologies. Building upon our previous…
Axion-like particles lead to a plethora of new phenomena relating to compact astrophysical objects including stellar and black hole superradiance, axion stars and axion clusters. In this work, we investigate a new scenario in which…
These notes discuss the emergence of the Polyakov action from the low-energy limit of an array of relativistic particles with harmonic interactions, which is suggestive of a ``microscopic'' description of string theory.
In this second part of the paper, dedicated to theories with extra dimensions, a new physical notion about the "tensor length scale" is introduced, based on the gravitational theories with covariant and contravariant metric tensor…
Particles of low velocity, travelling without dissipation in a superfluid, can interact and emit sound when they collide. We propose a minimal model in which the equations of motion of the particles, including a short-range repulsive force,…
If axions exist they are efficiently produced in the hot and dense interior of stars, providing a novel energy-loss mechanism. In order to avoid a conflict with the observed properties of stars, one can derive a lower limit on the…
A recently proposed mechanism for large-scale structure in string cosmology --based on massless axionic seeds-- is further analyzed and extended to the acoustic-peak region. Existence, structure, and normalization of the peaks turn out to…
We review cosmological solutions of type II superstrings and M-theory, emphasizing the role of non-vanishing Ramond form backgrounds. Compactifications on flat and, more generally, maximally symmetric spatial subspaces are presented. We…
A generic low-energy prediction of string theory is the existence of a large collection of axions, commonly known as a string axiverse. Axions also have a natural cosmological production mechanism, vacuum misalignment, making them…
Many theoretically well-motivated extensions of the Standard Model contain heavy pseudoscalars that couple to hypercharge topological density. The cosmological dynamics of such hypercharge axions could, under certain conditions, lead to…
The recent WMAP data have confirmed that exotic dark matter together with the vacuum energy (cosmological constant) dominate in the flat Universe. The nature of the dark matter constituents cannot be determined till they are directly…
We study the low-energy effective theories of photons and gravitons, matching them at one loop to a UV completion with a massive spinning matter particle. The matter is allowed to have non-minimal electromagnetic and gravitational…
In view of the expectation that the solitonic sector of the lower dimensional world may be originated from the solitonic sector of string theory, various solitonic solutions are reduced from the heterotic fivebrane solutions in the…
We derive the basic correlation functions of twist fields coming from arbitrary twisted sectors in symmetric $Z_N$ orbifold conformal field theories, keeping all the admissible marginal perturbations, in particular those corresponding to…
String theory/M-theory generally predicts that axionic fields with a broad mass spectrum extending below 10^{-10}eV are produced after compactification to four dimensions. These axions/fields provoke a rich variety of cosmophysical…
Axions are hypothetical pseudoscalar particles introduced initially as a solution to the Strong CP problem in Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), and they also arise naturally in a broad class of low-energy compactifications of string theory.…
I review the issue of string and compactification scales in the weak-coupling regimes of string theory. I explain how in the Brane World scenario a (effectively) two-dimensional transverse space that is hierarchically larger than the string…
We investigate the natural occurence of exponentially small couplings in effective field theories deduced from higher dimensional models. We calculate the coupling between twisted fields of the Z_3 Abelian orbifold compactification of the…
We consider type IIB theory compactified on a two-sphere in the presence of mutually nonlocal 7-branes. The BPS states associated with the gauge vectors of exceptional groups are seen to arise from open strings connecting the 7-branes, and…