Related papers: Strings, Fivebranes and an Expanding Universe
Fractional superstrings are non-trivial generalizations of ordinary superstrings and heterotic strings, and have critical spacetime dimensions which are less than ten by virtue of a worldsheet fractional supersymmetry relating worldsheet…
S(pacelike)D-branes are objects arising naturally in string theory when Dirichlet boundary conditions are imposed on the time direction. SD-brane physics is inherently time-dependent. Previous investigations of gravity fields of SD-branes…
In analogy to the Schwinger pair production in QED, there exists also the so-called open string pair production for a system of two Dp branes, placed parallel at a separation, with at least one brane carrying a worldvolume electric flux, in…
We study the time evolution of a $3+1$ dimensional spacetime, where space is a large three-sphere, due to small perturbations of the background fields. We focus on two classes of deformations. One corresponds on the worldsheet to…
In these lectures I discuss the possibility that superstrings of cosmic length might exist and be observable. I first review the original idea of cosmic strings arising as gauge theory solitons, and discuss in particular their network…
We study the dynamics of parallel brane-brane and brane-antibrane scattering in string theory in flat spacetime, focusing on the pair production of open strings that stretch between the branes. We are particularly interested in the case of…
It is proved that a basic superembedding equation for the 2-dimensional worldsheet superspace $\S^{(2|8+8)}$ embedded into D=10 type IIB superspace $M^{(10|16+16)}$ provides a universal, S-duality invariant description of a fundamental…
In the context of string theory we argue that higher dimensional Dp-branes unwind and evaporate so that we are left with D3-branes embedded in a (9+1)-dimensional bulk. One of these D3-branes plays the role of our Universe. Within this…
We consider a late-time cosmological model based on a recent proposal that the infinite-bare-coupling limit of superstring/M-theory exists and has good phenomenological properties, including a vanishing cosmological constant, and a…
String Quantum Gravity is motivated and introduced. Advances in the study of the classical and quantum string dynamics in curved spacetime are reported: 1-New Classes of Exact Multistring solutions in curved spacetimes. 2-Mass spectrum of…
We show that the scattering amplitude of four open string scalars or tachyons on the world-volume of a D$_p$-brane in the bosonic string theory can be written in a universal form. The difference between this amplitude and the corresponding…
A novel generalisation of the Dirac-Born-Infeld string scenario is described. It is shown that matter residing on the moving brane is dark and has the so-called disformal coupling to gravity. This gives rise to cosmologies where dark matter…
We assume that our universe originated from highly excited and interacting strings with coupling constant g_s = {\cal O} (1). Fluctuations of spacetime geometry are large in such strings and the physics dictating the emergence of a final…
We investigate infinite strings in $(2+1)D$ space-time, which may be considered as excitations of straight lines on the spatial plane. We also propose the hamiltonian description of such objects that differs from the standard hamiltonian…
Under the six-dimensional heterotic/type $IIA$ duality map, a solitonic membrane solution of heterotic string theory transforms into a singular solution of type $IIA$ theory, and should therefore be interpreted as a fundamental membrane in…
The effect of fluxes on open string moduli is studied by analyzing the constraints imposed by supersymmetry on D-branes in type IIB flux backgrounds. We show that generically the conditions of supersymmetry cannot be maintained when moving…
Space-filling S-branes can mediate a transition between a contracting and an expanding universe in the Einstein frame. Following up on previous work that uncovered such bouncing solutions in the context of weakly coupled thermal…
In this PhD thesis the low energy effective actions for D-branes and the M5-brane are used to analyze the dynamics of brane probes moving in the geometry created by diverse supergravity backgrounds. It begins with an introduction to string…
Motivated by string-theoretic swampland conjectures, the existence of a dark fifth dimension, whose size is roughly 1 -- 10 microns, has been proposed. A great deal of supporting evidence has been presented, and definitive experimental…
The implications of string theory for understanding the dimension of uncompactified spacetime are investigated. Using recent ideas in string cosmology, a new model is proposed to explain why three spatial dimensions grew large. Unlike the…