arXiv subjects

Ahmed Rakin Kamal

Publications and source records attributed to Ahmed Rakin Kamal.

8 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Fire at the Tip of the Throat: Hagedorn Phase after brane-antibrane inflation?

We study the post-inflationary open-string Hagedorn phase in perturbatively moduli stabilized brane-antibrane inflation. In this class of models, the volume modulus is stabilized by perturbative corrections rather than by non-perturbative effects to the superpotential, thereby avoiding the standard brane-antibrane $η$-problem. Since inflation ends through tachyon condensation and brane-antibrane annihilation, the endpoint is intrinsically stringy and need not be described immediately by an ordinary radiation bath. We analyze whether the energy released at annihilation can drive the visible sector into an open-string Hagedorn phase, and study the consequences for dark radiation. If the Standard Model (SM) branes lie in the same throat as where the annihilation occurs, we find that a modest fraction of the released energy deposited into surviving visible open strings is sufficient to enter the Hagedorn regime and can suppress the effective number of relativistic species $ΔN_{\rm eff}$ below current observational bounds. If the SM lies in a different throat, the result depends on inter-throat energy transfer: prompt or delayed transfer can still yield a visible Hagedorn phase. However, the mechanism is most efficient when the local string scale in the SM throat is lower than or comparable to that in the annihilation throat.

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arXiv2026

A Circle That Won't Return: The Fate of RR Fluxes and D-branes in Type 0A Tachyon Condensation

We study the closed-string tachyon and doubled Ramond-Ramond sector of type 0A in light of the proposed M-theory description on $S^1\vee S^1$-the wedge of two circles joined at a point. In this picture the two RR copies are associated with the two circle components, which we call branches, and tachyon condensation corresponds to shrinking one branch to the type IIA endpoint. From the type 0A equations of motion, we derive the branch-balance condition for a tachyon stationary point and identify the branch-odd RR fluctuation that sources the tachyon around a symmetric background. We then analyze the fate of the collapsing branch RR data as one branch of the wedge collapses to the type IIA endpoint. For an isolated unscreened collapsing-branch $D_p^-$ source, a Gauss-law estimate shows that the long-range RR field-energy cost scales inversely with the shrinking circle and thus becoming infinitely costly, generalizing the $D0^-$-brane decoupling in the original wedge picture. We describe the infrared screening of the relative RR field through an effective higher-form Stückelberg mechanism and distinguish this from a possible discharge of localized relative charge. Finally, using standard Wess-Zumino couplings of D-branes, we identify an effective relative-charge carrier and derive a parametric thin-wall criterion for when such a discharge channel $D_p^- \to D_p^+$ can be energetically favored.

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arXiv2026

Effect of Moduli Redefinitions on Fibre Inflation

In this paper, we have discovered a new avenue of fibre inflation in perturbative large volume scenario (pLVS) due to the redefinition of the base modulus. pLVS offers a novel regime where large volume of the internal space is guaranteed without the need of non-perturbative effects. In this setup, we study the possibility where a base redefinition allows to assess different versions of fibre inflation whose spectral index aligns with Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) data and produces tensor-to-scalar ratio in the range $0.008\lesssim r\lesssim 0.01$ in different setups we have considered. The leading order flat direction - which in our case is the fibre modulus - is lifted with the combinations of string loop corrections, leading order $α^{\prime 3}$$R^4$-correction, higher derivative $F^{4}$ corrections as well as our new ingredient redefinition of the modulus. Since recent Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) results appear to favour a dynamical explanation for late-time acceleration over a simple cosmological constant, exploring quintessence offers a more suitable approach. In this lore, we also examine the quintessence sector to complete our model and account for both early- and late-time cosmic acceleration. In this framework, the poly-instanton correction generates a potential along the axionic directions, and we find that the resulting quintessence behaviour and the subsequent cosmological predictions about dark matter closely resemble the predictions of the original fibre inflation scenario studied earlier.

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arXiv2026

One loop in $D=11$ vs $D=10$: 4-point check

The one-loop correction to eleven-dimensional supergravity involves a cubically divergent term $t_8t_8R^4$, with four Riemann tensors. A similar term (with finite coefficient) has been argued to be present in the M-theory effective action. It is expected to reduce to a similar one-loop term present in the type IIA effective action. This has previously been verified in the NSNS sector at the 4-point level. Here we extend this result to couplings of NSNS and RR fields, which have been computed using the pure spinor formalism. In particular, we check all couplings of RR fields to the dilaton as well as all couplings involving the metric and RR three-form. Correcting some minor mistakes in the literature we find complete agreement. We also give a complete analysis of 4-point terms in eleven dimensions computed previously from superparticle amplitudes and present a very simple form for these.

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arXiv2026

Time-dependent flux backgrounds in type IIB supergravity

We analytically construct families of type IIB supergravity backgrounds in ten dimensions in which the four-dimensional metric is time dependent, while the six-dimensional internal space is an arbitrary compact Calabi-Yau manifold (with no restriction on holonomy) up to an overall time-dependent scale factor. Our solutions include cases with all fluxes (three-form and self-dual five-form) switched on, as well as cases with subsets of these fluxes, together with a time-dependent axiodilaton in most cases. These constructions require no local sources. We show that the associated energy-momentum tensors (both 10D and the resulting 4D effective) satisfy the null, weak, strong, and dominant energy conditions. In our explicit constructions, the Ricci scalar of the four-dimensional Einstein frame metric is negative; such backgrounds may find applications to anisotropic or FLRW cosmologies in the early universe. We also revisit the Maldacena--Nuñez no-go analysis, incorporating new elements that appear in our constructions, namely an overall noncompact spacetime-dependent scale factor multiplying the internal metric, and field strengths with components partially covering the noncompact directions. We argue that, with these generalizations, a four-dimensional Einstein-frame metric with positive Ricci scalar cannot be ruled out by such an analysis.

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arXiv2025

Perturbative Kähler Moduli Inflation

In this work, we present two classes of inflationary models in the framework of type IIB string theory. The inflatons correspond to blow-up Kähler modulus arising from compactifying type IIB string theory on a Calabi-Yau. Using perturbative corrections, we first highlight a procedure for stabilising more than one Kähler modulus. For the case of two Kähler moduli, we explicitly construct two classes of inflationary potentials within the Kähler cone which satisfy both EFT and cosmological constraints. The first class of models, arising from moduli redefinition of the blow-up mode, garners a potential of the form $V(ϕ)=V_{0}(1+C_{1} ϕ^{2/3})$ align with CMB data with scalar-to-tensor ratio $r\lesssim 10^{-2}$. The second class of models, which have been recently proposed as loop blow-up inflation, have a form $V(ϕ)=V_{0}(1+C_{2}ϕ^{-2/3})$, also agrees with CMB data with scalar-to tensor-ratio $r\lesssim 10^{-8}$. Our work differs from the original loop blow-up inflation in terms of stabilization mechanism and subsequently the scalar-to tensor ratio.

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arXiv2025

No manifest T-duality at order $α'^3$

When reduced from $10$ to $10-d$ dimensions tree-level string theory exhibits an $O(d,d)$ symmetry. This symmetry, which is closely related to T-duality, appears only after certain field redefinitions. We find a simple form for a subset of these redefinitions at order $α'^3$ and show that they cannot be lifted to ten dimensions. This is inconsistent with ``manifestly T-duality invariant'' approaches such as generalized geometry (in the uncompactified setting). Such formulations therefore seem not to be the correct language to describe string theory.

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arXiv2025

Back to the origins of brane-antibrane inflation

We study a new framework for brane-antibrane inflation where moduli stabilisation relies purely on perturbative corrections to the effective action. This guarantees that the model does not suffer from the eta-problem. The inflationary potential has two contributions: the tension of an antibrane at the tip of a warped throat, and its Coulomb interaction with a mobile brane. This represents the first realisation of the original idea of brane-antibrane inflation, as opposed to inflection point inflation which arises when the moduli are fixed with non-perturbative effects. Moreover, we formulate the brane-antibrane dynamics as an F-term potential of a nilpotent superfield in a manifestly supersymmetric effective theory. We impose compatibility with data and consistency conditions on control over the approximations and find that slow-roll inflation can occur in a large region of the underlying parameter space. The scalar spectral index is in agreement with data and the tensor-to-scalar ratio is beyond current observational reach. Interestingly, after the end of inflation the volume mode can, but does not need to, evolve towards a late-time minimum at larger values.

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