arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Swapna Mahapatra.
We investigate the tachyon-dilaton-metric system to study the "graceful exit" problem in string theoretic inflation, where tachyon plays the role of the scalar field. From the phase space analysis, we find that the inflationary phase does not smoothly connect to a Friedmann-Robertson-Walker (FRW) expanding universe, thereby providing a simple tachyonic extension of the recently proved stringy no-go theorem.
We study string propagation in an exact, four-dimensional dyonic black hole background. The general solutions describing string configurations are obtained by solving the string equations of motion and constraints. By using the covariant formalism, we also investigate the propagation of physical perturbations along the string in the given curved background.
Starting from the self-dual "triplet" of gravitational instanton solutions in Euclidean gravity, we obtain the corresponding instanton solutions in string theory by making use of the target space duality symmetry. These dual triplet solutions can be obtained from the general dual Taub-NUT de Sitter solution through some limiting procedure as in the pure gravity case. The dual gravitational instanton solutions obtained here are self-dual for some cases, with respect to certain isometries, but not always.
We investigate the cosmological solutions in closed bosonic string theory in the presence of non zero tachyon condensate. We specifically obtain time dependent solutions which describe an anisotropic universe. We also discuss the nature of such time dependent solutions when small tachyon fluctuations around the condensate are taken into account.
We obtain new duality transformations relating some exact string backgrounds, by defining the nilpotent duality. We show that the ungauged $SL(2, R)$ WZW model transforms by its action into the three dimensional plane wave geometry. We also give the inverse transformation from the plane wave to the $SL(2, R)$ model and discuss the implications of the results.
A rotating charged black string solution in the low energy effective field theory describing five dimensional heterotic string theory is constructed. The solution is labelled by mass, electric charge, axion charge and angular momentum per unit length. The extremal limit of this solution is also studied.
We analyze the new states that have recently been discovered in 2D string theory by E. Witten and B. Zwiebach. Since the Liouville direction is uncompactified, we show that the deformations by the new ghost number two states generate equivalent classical solutions of the string fields. We argue that the new ghost number one states are responsible for generating transformations which relate such equivalent solutions. We also discuss the possible interpretation of higher ghost number states of those kinds.
An exact conformal field theory describing a four dimensional 2-brane solution is found by considering a chiral gauged Wess-Zumino -Witten theory corresponding to $SL(2, R)\times R$ , where one gauges the one dimensional $U(1)$ subgroup together with a translation in $R$. The backgrounds for string propagation are explicitly obtained and the target space is shown to have a true curvature singularity.
The tree-level three-point correlation functions of local operators in the general $(p,q)$ minimal models coupled to gravity are calculated in the continuum approach. On one hand, the result agrees with the unitary series ($q=p+1$); and on the other hand, for $p=2, q=2k-1$, we find agreement with the one-matrix model results.