相关论文: String Cosmology: A Review

In spite of its great phenomenological success, current models of scalar field-driven inflation suffer from important unresolved conceptual issues. New fundamental physics will be required to address these questions. String theory is a…

It is argued that string theory may pose new conceptual issues for the history and philosophy of science.

The cosmological constant problem and brane universes are reviewed briefly. We discuss how the cosmological constant problem manifests itself in various scenarios for brane universes. We review attempts - and their difficulties - that aim…

We provide a concise and accessible introduction to (geometric) string structures, highlighting their connection to loop spaces and outlining relationships with neighboring topics.

The aim of these lectures is to give a brief introduction to brane cosmology. After introducing some basic geometrical notions, we discuss the cosmology of a brane universe with matter localized on the brane. Then we introduce an intrinsic…

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…

String field theory is a candidate for a full non-perturbative definition of string theory. We aim to define string field theory on a space-time lattice to investigate its behaviour at the quantum level. Specifically, we look at string…

This is an introduction to some recent developments in string theory and M theory. We try to concentrate on the main physical aspects, and often leave more technical details to the original literature.

This is a review of the physics and cosmology of the cosmological constant. Focusing on recent developments, I present a pedagogical overview of cosmology in the presence of a cosmological constant, observational constraints on its…

At its very beginning, the universe is believed to have grown exponentially in size via the mechanism of inflation. The almost scale-invariant density perturbation spectrum predicted by inflation is strongly supported by cosmological…

We present an elementary account of mathematical cosmology through a series of important unsolved problems. We introduce the fundamental notion of `a cosmology' and focus on the issue of singularities as a theme unifying many current,…

Making use of the wealth of new observational data coming from the sky it is possible to constrain particle physics theories beyond the Standard Model. One way to do this is illustrated in this article: a subset of theories admits cosmic…

The aim of these lectures is to give an introduction to several topics which lie at the intersection of string theory, gravity theory and gravity phenomenology. One successively reviews: (i) the "membrane" approach to the dissipative…

String theory builds on the great legacy of Yukawa and Tomonaga: New degrees of freedom and control of the UV are two important themes. This talk will give an overview of some of the progress and some of the unsolved problems that…

The cosmic string theory for cosmological fluctuations is a good example of healthy scientific progress in cosmology. It is a well defined physically motivated model that has been tested by cosmological observations and has been ruled out…

Currently, string theory represents the only advanced approach to a unification of all interactions, including gravity. In spite of the more than thirty years of its existence it did not make any empirically testable predictions. And it is…

As of today there exist consistent, gauge-invariant string field theories describing all string theories: bosonic open and closed strings, open superstrings, heterotic strings and type II strings. The construction of these theories require…

Cosmic strings, a hot subject in the 1980's and early 1990's, lost its appeal when it was found that it leads to inconsistencies in the power spectrum of the measured cosmic microwave background temperature anisotropies. However,…

It has been speculated that cosmic string networks could produce ultra-high energy cosmic rays as a by-product of their evolution. By making use of recent work on the evolution of such networks, it will be shown that the flux of cosmic rays…

String theory posesses numerous axion candidates. The recent realization that the compactification radius in string theory might be large means that these states can solve the strong CP problem. This still leaves the question of the…