Related papers: Valleys in String Foam Suppress Quantum Coherence
The interplay between quantum fluctuation and spacetime curvature is shown to induce an additional quantum-curvature (QC) term in the energy-momentum tensor of fluid using the generalized framework of the stochastic variational method…
We argue that a generic instability afflicts vacua that arise in theories whose moduli space has large dimension. Specifically, by studying theories with multiple scalar fields we provide numerical evidence that for a generic local minimum…
We review various aspects of de Sitter spacetime in string theory: its status as an effective field theory spacetime solution, its relation to the vacuum energy problem in string theory, its (global) holographic definition in terms of two…
We review recent developments on nonrelativistic string theory. In flat spacetime, the theory is defined by a two-dimensional relativistic quantum field theory with nonrelativistic global symmetries acting on the worldsheet fields. This…
Intrinsic and extrinsic valley Hall effects are predicted to emerge in graphene systems with uniform or spatially-varying mass terms. Extrinsic mechanisms, mediated by the valley-dependent scattering of electrons at the Fermi surface, can…
We study the dynamics of a coherent state of closed type II string gravitons within the framework of the Steepest Entropy Ascent Quantum Thermodynamics, an effective model where the quantum evolution is driven by a maximal increase of…
Within a Liouville approach to non-critical string theory, we discuss space-time foam effects on the propagation of low-energy particles. We find an induced frequency-dependent dispersion in the propagation of a wave packet, and observe…
Perturbative estimates suggest that extended topological defects such as cosmic strings emit few particles, but numerical simulations of the fields from which they are constructed suggest the opposite. In this paper we study the decay of…
Exact string solutions are presented, providing backgrounds where a dynamical change of topology is occuring. This is induced by the time variation of a modulus field. Some lessons are drawn concerning the region of validity of effective…
This paper revisits the problem of the string decay contribution to the axion cosmological energy density. We show that this contribution is proportional to the average relative increase when axion strings decay of a certain quantity…
The electromagnetic field correlators are evaluated around a cosmic string in background of $(D+1)$-dimensional dS spacetime assuming that the field is prepared in the Bunch-Davies vacuum state. The correlators are presented in the…
The fundamental string length, which is an essential part of string theory, explicitly breaks scale invariance. However, in field theory we demonstrated recently that the gravitational constant, which is directly related to the string…
Theory of scattering of a quantum-mechanical particle on a cosmic string is developed. S-matrix and scattering amplitude are determined as functions of the flux and the tension of the string. We reveal that, in the case of the nonvanishing…
Cosmic (super)strings offer promising ways to test ideas about the early universe and physics at high energies. While in field theory constructions their tension is usually assumed to be constant (or at most slowly-varying), this is often…
Off-resonance conductance through weakly coupled quantum dots ("valley conductance") is governed by cotunneling processes in which a large number of dot states participate. Virtually the same states participate in the transport at…
We first make more precise a recent "Hamiltonian" reformulation of the Hohm-Zwiebach approach to the tree-level, $O(d,d)$-invariant string cosmology equations at all orders in the $\alpha'$ expansion, and recall how it allows to give a…
It has been argued that the consistency of quantum theory with black hole physics requires nonlocality not present in ordinary effective field theory. We examine the extent to which such nonlocal effects show up in the perturbative S-matrix…
We give a brief overview of the string landscape and techniques used to construct string compactifications. We then explain how this motivates the notion of the swampland and review a number of conjectures that attempt to characterize…
We study the perturbative unitarity of noncommutative scalar field theories. Field theories with space-time noncommutativity do not have a unitary S-matrix. Field theories with only space noncommutativity are perturbatively unitary. This…
The interaction of defects can lead to a phenomenon of erasure. During this process, a lower-dimensional object gets absorbed and dissolved by a higher-dimensional one. The phenomenon is very general and has a wide range of implications,…