Related papers: Why do we live in 3+1 dimensions?
We discuss theories in which the standard-model particles are localized on a brane embedded in space-time with large compact extra dimensions, whereas gravity propagates in the bulk. In addition to the ground state corresponding to a…
In this thesis we study BPS 3-brane embedded in five dimensional $\mathcal{N}=2$ supergravity. We have found that when modeling our universe as a brane world filled with matter, radiation and/or pure energy, the time evolution of the brane…
The covariant field equations of ten-dimensional super D-branes are obtained by considering fundamental strings whose ends lie in the superworldsurface of the D-brane. By considering in a similar fashion Dp-branes ending on D(p+2)-branes we…
We motivate a relation between dark energy and the scale of new physics in weakly coupled string theory. This mixing between infrared and ultraviolet physics leads to a unique corner for real-world phenomenology: barring fine-tunings, we…
In string theory, the brane world scenario, where the Standard Model gauge and matter fields live inside some branes while gravitons live in the bulk, can be a viable description of our universe. In this note we argue that the brane world…
It has been suggested that our universe could be a 3-dimensional brane where the SM fields live embedded in a D-dimensional space-time. In flexible raneworlds, in addition to the SM fields, new degrees of freedom appear on the brane…
Limits of a system of N Dn-branes in which the bulk and string degrees of freedom decouple to leave a `matter' theory are investigated and, for n>4, either give a free theory or require taking $N \to \infty$. The decoupled matter theory is…
I argue that string creation may have played a role in reheating the universe after inflation. For strings in four dimensions that arise from branes wrapping cycles in the extra dimensions, estimates from effective field theory show that…
The current acceleration of the universe leads us to investigate higher dimensional gravity theory, which is able to explain acceleration from a theoretical view point without the need of introducing dark energy by hand. We argue that the…
In this colloquium-level account, I describe the cosmological constant problem: why is the energy of empty space at least 60 orders of magnitude smaller than several known contributions to it from the Standard Model of particle physics? I…
We propose, within a perturbative string theory example, a cosmological way to generate a large hierarchy between the observed Planck mass and the fundamental string scale. Time evolution results in three large space dimensions, one…
We study the entropy of concrete de Sitter flux compactifications and deformations of them containing D-brane domain walls. We determine the relevant causal and thermodynamic properties of these "D-Sitter" deformations of de Sitter…
The past year has seen enormous progress in string theory. It has become clear that all of the different string theories are different limits of a single theory. Moreover, in certain limits, one obtains a new, eleven-dimensional structure…
5D warped extra dimension models with multiple 3-branes can naturally realize multiple hierarchical mass scales which are ubiquitous in physics beyond the Standard Model. We discuss cosmological consequences of such multi-brane models with…
We derive the general form of the cosmological scalar field potential which is compatible both with the existence of black holes and p-branes related to string/M theory and with multidimensional inflationary cosmology. It is shown that the…
One of the drawbacks of conventional grand unification scenarios has been that the unification scale is too high to permit direct exploration. In this paper, we show that the unification scale can be significantly lowered (perhaps even to…
In a recent paper we showed how Starobinsky-like inflation could emerge from dilaton dynamics in brane cosmology scenarios based on string theory, in which our universe is represented as a three-brane and the effective potential acquires a…
In a previous publication by some of the authors (N.E.M., M.S. and M.F.Y.), we have argued that the "D-material universe", that is a model of a brane world propagating in a higher-dimensional bulk populated by collections of D-particle…
We obtain the entropy of a homogeneous anisotropic universe applicable, by assumption, to the fractional branes in the universe in the model of Chowdhury and Mathur. The entropy for the 3 or 4 charge fractional branes thus obtained is not…
We consider (3+1)-dimensional N=2 supersymmetric QED with two flavors of fundamental hypermultiplets. This theory supports 1/2-BPS domain walls and flux tubes (strings), as well as their 1/4-BPS junctions. The effective (2+1)-dimensional…