Related papers: Towards a Big Crunch Dual
String theory can (in principle) describe gravity at all curvature scales, and can be applied to cosmology to look back in time beyond the Planck epoch. The duality symmetries of string theory suggest a cosmological picture in which the…
We argue that two four-dimensional strongly coupled superconformal field theories, on the Higgs branch in certain large N limits, become respectively (2,0) theory and (1,1) little string theory in six dimensions. We identify the spectrum of…
We consider a picture in which the transition from a big crunch to a big bang corresponds to the collision of two empty orbifold planes approaching each other at a constant non-relativistic speed in a locally flat background space-time, a…
We show that type 0B theory has a classical AdS_5 x S^5 solution and argue that it is stable at the string-theory level for small enough radius. The dual 4-d conformal field theory is the infrared limit of the theory on N electric D3-branes…
It is challenging to construct explicit and controllable models that realize de Sitter solutions in string compactifications. This difficulty is the main motivation for the Refined de Sitter Conjecture and the Trans-Planckian Censorship…
General ideas of gauge/gravity duality allow for the possibility of time dependent solutions that interpolate between a perturbative gauge theory phase and a weakly curved string/gravity phase. Such a scenario applied to cosmology would…
We consider new cosmological solutions with a collapsing, an intermediate and an expanding phase. The boundary between the expanding (collapsing) phase and the intermediate phase is seen by comoving observers as a cosmological past (future)…
The cosmological compactification of D=10, N=1 supergravity-super-Yang-Mills theory obtained from superstring theory is studied. The constraint of unbroken N=1 supersymmetry is imposed. A duality transformation is performed on the resulting…
We review two ways in which smooth cosmological evolution between two de Sitter phases can be obtained from M/string-theory. Firstly, we perform a hyperbolic reduction of massive IIA* theory to D=6 N=(1,1) SU(2)xU(1) gauged de Sitter…
These proceedings are based on lectures delivered at the "RTN Winter School on Strings, Supergravity and Gauge Theories", CERN, January 16 - January 20, 2006. The school was mainly aimed at Ph.D. students and young postdocs. The lectures…
In this review, a number of approaches to superstring cosmology which make use of key features which distinguish string theory from point particle theories are discussed, with particular emphasis on emergent scenarios. One motivation for…
String theories naturally exhibit dualities that lead to hidden symmetries in the low-energy effective description, which have been used to great effect to generate supergravity solutions. We review recent progress in using hidden…
Strong cosmic censorship conjecture is central to the deterministic nature of general relativity, since it asserts that given any generic initial data on a spacelike hypersurface, the future can be uniquely predicted. However, recently it…
We consider theories with time-dependent Hamiltonians which alternate between being bounded and unbounded from below. For appropriate frequencies dynamical stabilization can occur rendering the effective potential of the system stable. We…
We discuss a possible compactification of a higher-dimensional gravitational theory, which give rise to a de Sitter or an accelerating universe, to the extent that it can describe a low energy limit of string theory. Such analysis can be…
In this paper we study the description of the Universe based on the low energy superstring theory modified by the Loop Quantum Gravity effects.This approach was proposed by De Risi et al. in the Phys. Rev. D {\bf 76} (2007) 103531. We show…
We further explore the quantum dynamics near past cosmological singularities in anisotropic Kasner-AdS solutions using gauge/gravity duality. The dual description of the bulk evolution involves N=4 super Yang-Mills on the contracting branch…
We show that string theory on a compact negatively curved manifold, preserving a U(1)^{b_1} winding symmetry, grows at least b_1 new effective dimensions as the space shrinks. The winding currents yield a "D-dual" description of a Riemann…
Recently it has been suggested that non-gaussian inflationary perturbations can be usefully analysed in terms of a putative dual gauge theory defined on the future conformal infinity generated by an accelerating cosmology. The problem is…
A Closed string field theory action is formulated for $\mathcal N$ =8 self-dual supergravity which is off-shell and Lorentz covariant. The bosonic truncation in the quantum field theory limit gives the Plebanski type of action in the super…