Related papers: Open string tachyon is the stringy inflaton
This thesis examines the interaction of both bosonic and superstrings with various backgrounds with a view to understanding the interplay between tachyon condensation and world-sheet conformal invariance, and to understanding the overlap of…
It is shown that classical decay of unstable D-branes in bosonic and superstring theories produces pressureless gas with non-zero energy density. The energy density is stored in the open string fields, even though around the minimum of the…
The most important criteria for a successful inflation are to explain the observed temperature anisotropy in the cosmic microwave background radiation, and exiting inflation in a vacuum where it can excite the Standard Model quarks and…
In this Ph.D. thesis, we study tachyon condensation in string field theories. In chapter 2, we review Witten's bosonic string field theory and calculate the tachyon potential. In chapter 3, we calculate the tachyon potential in Berkovits'…
The results conjectured here are based on tachyon condensation in compactified bosonic strings. They can in fact be proven from compactification alone, but this step was not treated consistently here. The proof is given in a new version of…
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…
We give a generic argument that string theory provides a natural setting for warm inflationary cosmology. We then explore a specific model with an inflaton modulus field coupled to fields that provide the continuous dissipation needed for…
Non-supersymmetric brane world scenarios in string theory display perturbative instabilities that usually involve run-away potentials for scalar moduli fields. We investigate in the framework of intersecting brane worlds whether the leading…
We analyse the condensation of closed string tachyons on the $C/Z_N$ orbifold. We construct the potential for the tachyons upto the quartic interaction term in the large $N$ limit. In this limit there are near marginal tachyons. The quartic…
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…
We suggest that the universe filled with unstable D-branes in their rolling tachyon vacuum state, described by periodic arrays of D-instantons along the imaginary time direction, may be a natural background for formulating string theory.…
We study the possibility of extended inflation in the effective theory of gravity from strings compactified to four dimensions and find that it strongly depends on the mechanism of supersymmetry breaking. We consider a general class of…
Recent work on closed string tachyon condensation suggests the existence of a `nothing state' where closed strings and space itself vanish. We consider the evolution of D-branes in such backgrounds, focusing on the early stages of the…
It has been shown recently that the background independent open string field theory provides an exact description of the tachyon condensation on unstable D-branes of bosonic string theory. In this analysis the overall normalisation of the…
Large field excursions are required in a number of axion models of inflation. These models also possess global cosmic strings, around which the axion follows a path mirroring the inflationary trajectory. Cosmic strings are thus an…
The amplitudes in perturbative open string theory are examined as functions of the tachyon condensate parameter. The boundary state formalism demonstrates the decoupling of the open string modes at the non-perturbative minima of the tachyon…
Cosmic strings are predicted by many field-theory models, and may have been formed at a symmetry-breaking transition early in the history of the universe, such as that associated with grand unification. They could have important…
We present an exact representation for decaying ZZ-branes within the dual matrix model formulation of c=1 string theory. It is shown how to trade the insertion of decaying ZZ-branes for a shift of the closed string background. Our formlaism…
Due to the quasi-exponential red-shifting which occurs during an inflationary period in the very early Universe, wavelengths which at the present time correspond to cosmological lengths are in general sub-Planckian during the early stages…
Cosmic strings are one-dimensional topological defects which could have been formed in the early stages of our Universe. They triggered a lot of interest, mainly for their cosmological implications: they could offer an alternative to…