arXiv subjects

James M. Cline

Publications and source records attributed to James M. Cline.

At least 163 records · Page 9Linked to original sources

arXiv2006

Multibrane Inflation and Dynamical Flattening of the Inflaton Potential

We investigate the problem of fine tuning of the potential in the KKLMMT warped flux compactification scenario for brane-antibrane inflation in Type IIB string theory. We argue for the importance of an additional parameter psi_0 (approximated as zero by KKLMMT), namely the position of the antibrane, relative to the equilibrium position of the brane in the absence of the antibrane. We show that for a range of values of a particular combination of the Kahler modulus, warp factor, and psi_0, the inflaton potential can be sufficiently flat. We point out a novel mechanism for dynamically achieving flatness within this part of parameter space: the presence of multiple mobile branes can lead to a potential which initially has a metastable local minimum, but gradually becomes flat as some of the branes tunnel out. Eventually the local minimum disappears and the remaining branes slowly roll together, with assisted inflation further enhancing the effective flatness of the potential. With the addition of Kahler and superpotential corrections, this mechanism can completely remove the fine tuning problem of brane inflation, within large regions of parameter space. The model can be falsified if future cosmic microwave background observations confirm the hint of a large running spectral index.

hep-th↗

arXiv2005

Aspects of brane-antibrane inflation

I describe a dynamical mechanism for solving the fine-tuning problem of brane-antibrane inflation. By inflating with stacks of branes and antibranes, the branes can naturally be trapped at a metastable minimum of the potential. As branes tunnel out of this minimum, the shape of the potential changes to make the minimum shallower. Eventually the minimum disappears and the remaining branes roll slowly because the potential is nearly flat. I show that even with a small number of branes, there is a good chance of getting enough inflation. Running of the spectral index is correlated with the tilt in such a way as to provide a test of the model by future CMB experiments.

hep-th↗

arXiv2005

Moduli Stabilization in Brane Gas Cosmology with Superpotentials

In the context of brane gas cosmology in superstring theory, we show why it is impossible to simultaneously stabilize the dilaton and the radion with a general gas of strings (including massless modes) and D-branes. Although this requires invoking a different mechanism to stabilize these moduli fields, we find that the brane gas can still play a crucial role in the early universe in assisting moduli stabilization. We show that a modest energy density of specific types of brane gas can solve the overshoot problem that typically afflicts potentials arising from gaugino condensation.

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arXiv2005

Codimension-two branes in six-dimensional supergravity and the cosmological constant problem

We investigate in detail recent suggestions that codimension-two braneworlds in six dimensional supergravity might circumvent Weinberg's no-go theorem for self-tuning of the cosmological constant. The branes are given finite thickness in order to regularize mild singularities in their vicinity, and we allow them to have an arbitrary equation of state. We study perturbatively the time evolution of the solutions by solving the equations of motion linearized around a static background. Even allowing for the most general possibility of warping and nonconical singularities, the geometry does not relax to a static solution when the brane stress-energies are perturbed. Rather, both the internal and external geometries become time-dependent, and the system does not exhibit any self-tuning behavior.

hep-th↗

arXiv2005

Inflation from String Theory

I review some aspects of obtaining inflation from string theory, in particular brane-antibrane inflation within the framework of KKLMMT, and racetrack inflation. Further, I discuss recent work on the problem of reheating after brane-antibrane annihilation, and possible distinctive features of production of cosmic string and brane defects at this time.

hep-th↗

arXiv2005

Overproduction of cosmic superstrings

We show that the naive application of the Kibble mechanism seriously underestimates the initial density of cosmic superstrings that can be formed during the annihilation of D-branes in the early universe, as in models of brane-antibrane inflation. We study the formation of defects in effective field theories of the string theory tachyon both analytically, by solving the equation of motion of the tachyon field near the core of the defect, and numerically, by evolving the tachyon field on a lattice. We find that defects generically form with correlation lengths of order M_s^{-1} rather than H^{-1}. Hence, defects localized in extra dimensions may be formed at the end of inflation. This implies that brane-antibrane inflation models where inflation is driven by branes which wrap the compact manifold may have problems with overclosure by cosmological relics, such as domain walls and monopoles.

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arXiv2004

Can codimension-two branes solve the cosmological constant problem?

It has been suggested that codimension-two braneworlds might naturally explain the vanishing of the 4D effective cosmological constant, due to the automatic relation between the deficit angle and the brane tension. To investigate whether this cancellation happens dynamically, and within the context of a realistic cosmology, we study a codimension-two braneworld with spherical extra dimensions compactified by magnetic flux. Assuming Einstein gravity, we show that when the brane contains matter with an arbitrary equation of state, the 4D metric components are not regular at the brane, unless the brane has nonzero thickness. We construct explicit 6D solutions with thick branes, treating the brane matter as a perturbation, and find that the universe expands consistently with standard Friedmann-Robertson-Walker (FRW) cosmology. The relation between the brane tension and the bulk deficit angle becomes $Δ=2πG_6(ρ-3 p)$ for a general equation of state. However, this relation does not imply a self-tuning of the effective 4D cosmological constant to zero; perturbations of the brane tension in a static solution lead to deSitter or anti-deSitter braneworlds. Our results thus confirm other recent work showing that codimension-two braneworlds in nonsupersymmetric Einstein gravity do not lead to a dynamical relaxation of the cosmological constant, but they leave open the possibility that supersymmetric versions can be compatible with self-tuning.

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arXiv2004

Tachyon Defect Formation and Reheating in Brane-Antibrane Inflation

We study analytically the dynamical formation of lower dimensional branes at the endpoint of brane-antibrane inflation through the condensation of topological defects of the tachyon field which describes the instability of the initial state. We then use this information to quantify the efficiency of the reheating which is due to the coupling of time dependent tachyon background to massless gauge fields which will be localized on the final state branes. We improve upon previous estimates indicating that this can be an efficient reheating mechanism for observers on the brane.

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arXiv2004

Creating the Universe from Brane-Antibrane Annihilation

When p-dimensional branes annihilate with antibranes in the early universe, as in brane-antibrane inflation, stable (p-2)-dimensional branes can appear in the final state. We reexamine the possibility that one of these (p-2)-branes could be our universe. In the low energy effective theory, the final state branes are cosmic string defects of the complex tachyon field which describes the instability of the initial state. We quantify the dynamics of formation of these vortices. This information is then used to estimate the production of massless gauge bosons on the final branes, due to their coupling to the time-dependent tachyon background, which would provide a mechanism for reheating after inflation. We improve upon previous estimates indicating that this can be an efficient reheating mechanism for observers on the brane.

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arXiv2004

The phantom menaced: constraints on low-energy effective ghosts

It has been suggested that a scalar field with negative kinetic energy, or ``ghost,'' could be the source of the observed late-time cosmological acceleration. Naively, such theories should be ruled out by the catastrophic quantum instability of the vacuum. We derive phenomenological bounds on the Lorentz-violating ultraviolet cutoff Lambda which must apply to low-energy effective theories of ghosts, in order to keep the instability at unobservable levels. Assuming only that ghosts interact at least gravitationally, we show that Lambda < 3 MeV for consistency with the cosmic gamma ray background. We also show that theories of ghosts with a Lorentz-conserving cutoff are completely excluded.

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arXiv2003

Asymmetrically warped compactifications and gravitational Lorentz violation

In a variant of the Randall-Sundrum braneworld model which has a charged black hole in an anti-de Sitter bulk, the 4D speed of gravity depends upon one's location in the bulk, and in general differs from the speed of light on a given 3-brane. We apply phenomenological constraints on the difference in the speeds of light and gravity to models which use the warping to solve the hierarchy problem. In particular, consideration of the gravi-Cerenkov radiation of Kaluza-Klein gravitons by ultra-high energy cosmic rays leads to a stringent limit on the fractional difference between the graviton and photon speeds in RS-like models: it must be less than a part in 10^{23}.

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arXiv2003

Does the small CMB quadrupole moment suggest new physics?

Motivated by WMAP's confirmation of an anomalously low value of the quadrupole moment of the CMB temperature fluctuations, we investigate the effects on the CMB of cutting off the primordial power spectrum P(k) at low wave numbers. This could arise, for example, from a break in the inflaton potential, a prior period of matter or radiation domination, or an oscillating scalar field which couples to the inflaton. We reanalyze the full WMAP parameter space supplemented by a low-k cutoff for P(k). The temperature correlations by themselves are better fit by a cutoff spectrum, but including the TE temperature-polarization spectrum reduces this preference to a 1.4 sigma effect. Inclusion of large scale structure data does not change the conclusion. If taken seriously, the low-k cutoff is correlated with optical depth so that reionization occurs even earlier than indicated by the WMAP analysis.

astro-ph↗

arXiv2003

Salvaging 1/R gravity models

This paper has been withdrawn by the author. It was argued that increasing F' would reduce the strength of the scalar coupling to matter. This argument failed to realize that the gravitational coupling to matter is controlled by the same power of F', hence the scalar always couples with the same strength as gravity.

astro-ph↗

arXiv2003

Cosmology of codimension-two braneworlds

We present a comprehensive study of the cosmological solutions of 6D braneworld models with azimuthal symmetry in the extra dimensions, moduli stabilization by flux or a bulk scalar field, and which contain at least one 3-brane that could be identified with our world. We emphasize an unusual property of these models: their expansion rate depends on the 3-brane tension either not at all, or in a nonstandard way, at odds with the naive expected dimensional reduction of these systems to 4D general relativity at low energies. Unlike other braneworld attempts to find a self-tuning solution to the cosmological constant problem, the apparent failure of decoupling in these models is not associated with the presence of unstabilized moduli; rather it is due to automatic cancellation of the brane tension by the curvature induced by the brane. This provides some corroboration for the hope that these models provide a distinctive step toward understanding the smallness of the observed cosmological constant. However, we point out some challenges for obtaining realistic cosmology within this framework.

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arXiv2003

Problems with Time-Varying Extra Dimensions or "Cardassian Expansion" as Alternatives to Dark Energy

It has recently been proposed that the Universe might be accelerating as a consequence of extra dimensions with time varying size. We show that although these scenarios can lead to acceleration, they run into serious difficulty when taking into account limits on the time variation of the four dimensional Newton's constant. On the other hand, models of ``Cardassian'' expansion based on extra dimensions which have been constructed so far violate the weak energy condition for the bulk stress energy, for parameters that give an accelerating universe.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2003

Real-time D-brane condensation

Unstable D-branes or brane-antibrane systems can decay to lower-dimensional branes. In the effective field theory description, the final state branes are defects in the tachyon field which describes the initial instability. We study the dynamical formation of codimension one defects (kinks) using Sen's ansatz for the tachyon Lagrangian. It is shown that the slope of the kink diverges within a finite amount of time after the tachyon starts to roll. We discuss the relevance for reheating after brane-antibrane inflation.

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arXiv2002

Reheating from Tachyon Condensation

We argue that it may be possible to reheat the universe after inflation driven by D-brane annihilation, due to the coupling of massless fields to the time-dependent tachyon condensate which describes the annihilation process. This mechanism can work if the original branes annihilate to a stable brane containing the standard model. Given reasonable assumptions about the shape of the tachyon background configuration and the size of the relevant extra dimension, the reheating can be efficient enough to overcome the problem of the universe being perpetually dominated by cold dark tachyon matter. In particular, reheating is most efficient when the final brane codimension is large, and when the derivatives of the tachyon background are large.

hep-th↗

arXiv2002

Order rho^2 Corrections to Cosmology with Two Branes

We present the results of work in which we derived the order rho^2 corrections to the Friedmann equations in the Randall-Sundrum I model. The effects of Golberger-Wise stabilization are taken into account. We surprisingly find that in the cases of inflation and radiation domination, the leading corrections on a given brane come exclusively from the effects of energy density located on the opposite brane.

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