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We review higher-dimensional unified theories from the general relativity, rather than the particle physics side. Three distinct approaches to the subject are identified and contrasted: compactified, projective and noncompactified. We…
If extra spacetime dimensions and low-scale gravity exist, black holes will be produced in observable collisions of elementary particles. For the next several years, ultra-high energy cosmic rays provide the most promising window on this…
It is proposed that the gamma ray burst photons near the peak of the spectrum at several hundred KeV are produced on very compact scales, where photon production is limited by blackbody effects and/or the requirement of energetic quanta…
Gamma-ray bursts are the most concentrated explosions in the Universe. They have been detected electromagnetically at energies up to tens of GeV, and it is suspected that they could be active at least up to TeV energies. It is also…
The observation of the time delay between the soft emission and the high-energy radiation from cosmological gamma ray bursts can be used as an important observational test of multi-dimensional physical theories. The main source of the time…
If quantum fields exist in extra compact dimensions, they will give rise to a quantum vacuum or Casimir energy. That vacuum energy will manifest itself as a cosmological constant. The fact that supernova and cosmic microwave background data…
Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) are extra-galactic and extremely energetic transient emissions of gamma rays, which are thought to be associated with the death of massive stars or the merger of compact objects in binary systems. Their huge…
We comment on some implications of theories with large compactification radii and TeV-scale quantum gravity. These include the behavior of high-energy gravitational scattering cross sections and consequences for ultra-high-energy cosmic…
Striking similarities exist between high energy gamma ray emission from active galactic nuclei (AGN) and gamma ray bursts (GRBs). They suggest that GRBs are generated by inverse Compton scattering from highly relativistic electrons in…
Mirror matter models have been suggested recently as an explanation of neutrino puzzles and microlensing anomalies. We show that mirror supernovae can be a copious source of energetic gamma rays if one assumes that the quantum gravity scale…
The infinite gravitational collapse of any supermassive stars should pass through an energy scale of the grand unified theory (GUT). After nucleon-decays, the supermassive star will convert nearly all its mass into energy, and produce the…
We consider the scale at which gravity becomes strong in linearized General Relativity coupled to the gauge-Higgs unified(GHU) model. We also discuss the unitarity of S-matrix in the same framework. The Kaluza-Klein(KK) gauge bosons, KK…
(Abridged) We interpret gamma ray bursts as relativistic, electromagnetic explosions. Specifically, we propose that they are created when a rotating, relativistic, stellar-mass progenitor loses much of its rotational energy in the form of a…
In these proceedings, I discuss recent progress in understanding the nature of cosmic gamma-ray bursts (GRB), with the focus on the apparent relation of several GRBs with an energetic subclass of stellar explosions, type Ib/c core-collapse…
I argue that the true quantum gravity scale cannot be much larger than the Planck length, because if it were then the quantum gravity-induced fluctuations in $\Lam$ would be insufficient to produce the observed cosmic ``dark energy''. If…
A new cosmological scenario for the origin of gamma ray bursts (GRBs) is proposed. In our scenario, a highly evolved central core in the dense galactic nucleus is formed containing a subsystem of compact stellar remnants (CSRs), such as…
We estimate the rate at which collisions between ultra-high energy cosmic rays can form small black holes in models with extra dimensions. If recent conjectures about false vacuum decay catalyzed by black hole evaporation apply, the lack of…
The most energetic neutron stars, powered by their rotation, are capable of producing pulsed radiation from the radio up to gamma rays with nearly TeV energies. These pulsars are part of the universe of energetic and powerful particle…
Cosmic gamma-ray bursts are one of the great frontiers of astrophysics today. They are a playground of relativists and observers alike. They may teach us about the death of stars and the birth of black holes, the physics in extreme…
We propose a lower limit on the size of a single discrete gravitational extra dimension in the context of an effective field theory for massive gravitons. The limit arises in this setup from the requirement that the Casimir energy density…