Related papers: String Theory and Quintessence
I review the main characteristics of structure formation in the quintessential Universe. Assuming equation of state w=p/\varrho=$const I provide a brief description of the background cosmology and discuss the linear growth of density…
Intrinsic and extrinsic geometric properties of string world sheets in curved space-time background are explored. In our formulation, the only dynamical degrees of freedom of the string are its immersion coordinates. Classical equation of…
Although quintessence models have attractive cosmological features, they face two major difficulties. First, it has not yet been possible to find one which convincingly realizes the goal of explaining present-day cosmic acceleration…
The intersection of string theory with cosmology is unavoidable in the early universe, and its exploration may shine light on both fields. In this thesis, three papers at this intersection are presented and reviewed, with the aim of…
In string theory, the traditional picture of a Universe that emerges from the inflation of a very small and highly curved space-time patch is a possibility, not a necessity: quite different initial conditions are possible, and not…
The spectrum of stable electrically and magnetically charged supersymmetric particles can change discontinuously as one changes the vacuum on the Coulomb branch of gauge theories with extended supersymmetry in four dimensions. We show that…
A class of non-supersymmetric string backgrounds can be constructed using twists that involve space-time fermion parity. We propose a non-perturbative definition of string theory in these backgrounds via gauge theories with supersymmetry…
It was recently shown that velocity-dependent forces between parallel fundamental strings moving apart in a $D-$dimensional spacetime implied an accelerating expanding universe in $D-1$-dimensional space-time. Exact solutions were obtained…
It is known that four-dimensional cosmologies exhibiting transient phases of acceleration can be obtained by compactifications of low-energy effective string or M-theory on time-varying manifolds. In the four-dimensional theory, the…
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.…
String theory is at the moment the only advanced approach to a unification of all interactions, including gravity. But, in spite of the more than thirty years of its existence, it does not make any empirically testable predictions, and it…
This is a short review on strings in curved spacetimes. We start by recalling the classical and quantum string behaviour in singular plane waves backgrounds. We then report on the string behaviour in cosmological spacetimes (FRW, de Sitter,…
We show that $4$-dimensional Robertson-Walker spacetimes can be constructed for which all of the beta functions vanish to leading order, yielding consistent string theory without extra dimensions. We find that there is a unique static…
We study conditions for the existence of asymptotic observables in cosmology. With the exception of de Sitter space, the thermal properties of accelerating universes permit arbitrarily long observations, and guarantee the production of…
In this semi-technical review we discuss string theory (and all that goes by that name) as a framework for a quantum theory of gravity. This is a new paradigm in theoretical physics that goes beyond relativistic quantum field theory. We…
A string theory in $3$ euclidean spacetime dimensions is found to describe the semiclassical behavior of a certain exact physical state of quantum general relativity in $4$ dimensions. Both the worldsheet and the three dimensional metric…
String theory, if it describes nature, is probably strongly coupled. In light of recent developments in string duality, this means that the ``real world'' should correspond to a region of the classical moduli space which admits no weak…
If there is a single underlying "theory of everything" which in some limits of its "moduli space" reduces to the five weakly coupled string theories in 10D, and 11D SUGRA, then it is possible that all six of them have some common domain of…
Tadpoles accompany, in one form or another, all attempts to realize supersymmetry breaking in String Theory, making the present constructions at best incomplete. Whereas these tadpoles are typically large, a closer look at the problem from…
We review recent work in which compactifications of string and M theory are constructed in which all scalar fields (moduli) are massive, and supersymmetry is broken with a small positive cosmological constant, features needed to reproduce…