Related papers: Brane Worlds, the Cosmological Constant and String…
We investigate an alternative compactification of extra dimensions using local cosmic string in the Brans-Dicke gravity framework. In the context of dynamical systems it is possible to show that there exist a stable field configuration for…
In these lectures, two different aspects of brane world scenarios in 5d gravity or string theory are discussed. In the first two lectures, work on how warped compactifications of 5d gravity theories can change the guise of the hierarchy…
I discuss cosmological models either derived from, or inspired by, string theory or M-theory. In particular I discuss solutions in the low-energy effective theory and the role of the dilaton, moduli and antisymmetric form fields in the…
In the context of colliding brane worlds I discuss a toy cosmological model, developed in collaboration with E. Gravanis, which arguably produces inflation and a relaxing to zero cosmological ``constant'' hierarchically small as compared to…
This elementary introduction to string field theory highlights the features and the limitations of this approach to quantum gravity as it is currently understood. String field theory is a formulation of string theory as a field theory in…
It has been proposed that the geometry of an extra dimension could automatically adjust itself to compensate for an arbitrary energy density on the 3-D brane which we are presumed to inhabit, such that a static solution to Einstein's…
We study the cosmological constant problem in a three-dimensional N=2 supergravity theory with gauge group SU[2]_{global}xU[1]_{local}. The model we consider is known to admit string-like configurations, the so-called semi-local cosmic…
We compute the 4--dimensional cosmological constant in string compactifications in which the Standard Model fields live on a non-supersymmetric brane inside a supersymmetric bulk. The cosmological constant receives contributions only from…
In spite of its great phenomenological success, current models of scalar field-driven inflation suffer from important unresolved conceptual issues. New fundamental physics will be required to address these questions. String theory is a…
In this paper, we study the possibility of obtaining a stable flat dark energy-dominated universe in a good agreement with observations in the framework of Swiss-cheese Brane-world cosmology. Two different Brane-world cosmologies with black…
Recent developments in the theory of extra dimensions have opened up avenues to confront such theories with cosmological tests. We discuss a brane-world model with a bulk scalar field, motivated by supergravity. The low-energy effective…
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 present a supersymmetry-breaking scenario in which both the breaking in the hidden sector with no-scale type supergravity and that in the observable sector with gauge mediation are taken into account. The breaking scales in the hidden…
Higher-dimensional theories imply that some constants, such as the gravitational constant and the strength of the gauge-couplings, are not fundamental constants. Instead they are related to the sizes of the extra--dimensional space, which…
Cosmological brane world solutions are found for five-dimensional bulk spacetimes with a scalar field. A supergravity inspired method for obtaining static solutions is combined with a method for finding brane cosmologies with constant bulk…
It is argued that classical string solutions should not be fine tuned to have a positive cosmological constant (CC) at the observed size, since even the quantum corrections from standard model effects will completely negate any classical…
We consider braneworld scenarios including the leading correction to the Einstein-Hilbert action suggested by superstring theory, the Gauss-Bonnet term. We obtain and study the complete set of equations governing the cosmological dynamics.…
Singularity-free cosmological solutions may be obtained from the string action at tree level if the dimension of the space-time is greater than 10 and if brane configurations are taken into account. The behaviour of the dilaton field in…
The observable universe could be a 1+3-surface (the "brane") embedded in a 1+3+d-dimensional spacetime (the "bulk"), with standard-model particles and fields trapped on the brane while gravity is free to access the bulk. At least one of the…
We propose a string-inspired model which correlates several aspects of particle physics and cosmology. Inspired by the flat directions and the absence of adjoint Higgs representations found in typical string models, we consider a no-scale…