Tachyonic Modes Research Articles

BCS instability and finite temperature corrections to tachyon mass in intersecting D1-branes

A holographic description of BCS superconductivity is given in arxiv:1104.2843. This model was constructed by insertion of a pair of D8-branes on a D4-background. The spectrum of intersecting D8-branes has tachyonic modes indicating an instability which is identified with the BCS instability in superconductors. Our aim is to study the stability of the intersecting branes under finite temperature effects. Many of the technical aspects of this problem are captured by a simpler problem of two intersecting D1-branes on flat background. In the simplified set-up we compute the one-loop finite temperature corrections to the tree-level tachyon mass using the frame-work of SU(2) Yang-Mills theory in (1 + 1)-dimensions. We show that the one-loop two-point functions are ultraviolet finite due to cancellation of ultraviolet divergence between the amplitudes containing bosons and fermions in the loop. The amplitudes are found to be infrared divergent due to the presence of massless fields in the loops. We compute the finite temperature mass correction to all the massless fields and use these temperature dependent masses to compute the tachyonic mass correction. We show numerically the existence of a transition temperature at which the effective mass of the tree-level tachyons becomes zero, thereby stabilizing the brane configuration.

Noncommutative static strings from matrix models

We examine the noncommutative cylinder solution to a matrix model with a Minkowski background metric. It can be regarded as the noncommutative analogue of a static circular string. Perturbations about the solution yield a tachyonic scalar field (and an additional tachyonic fermion in the full supersymmetric version of the model) in the commutative limit. The tachyonic mode is attributed to the fact that the circular string is unstable under uniform adiabatic deformations. We obtain a stabilizing term which when added to the matrix model removes the tachyonic mass.

On the stability of D7–[formula omitted] probes in near-conformal backgrounds

We investigate the perturbative stability of a nonsupersymmetric D7–D7¯ brane embedding in a particular class of type IIB backgrounds. These backgrounds are the gravitational duals of certain strongly-coupled gauge theories, that exhibit a nearly conformal regime (known as a walking regime). Previous studies in the literature have led to conflicting results as to whether the spectrum of fluctuations around the flavor D7–D7¯ embedding has a tachyonic mode or not. Here we reconsider the problem with a new analytical method and recover the previously obtained numerical results. We also point out that the earlier treatments relied on a coordinate system, in which it was not possible to take into account fluctuations of the point of confluence of the D7–D7¯ branes. Using an improved coordinate system, we confirm the presence of a normalizable tachyonic mode in this model, in agreement with the numerical calculations. Finally, we comment on the possibility of turning on worldvolume flux to stabilize the probe branes configuration.

On the stability of multiscale models of dynamical symmetry breaking from holography

We consider two classes of backgrounds of Type IIB supergravity obtained by wrapping D5-branes on a two-cycle inside the conifold. The field theory dual exhibits confinement and, in addition, a region in which the dynamics is walking, at least in the weak sense that the running of the coupling is anomalously slow. We introduce quenched matter in the fundamental, modeled by probe D7-branes which wrap an internal three-dimensional manifold and lie at the equator of the transverse two-sphere. In the space spanned by the remaining internal angle and the radial coordinate, the branes admit two embeddings. The first one is U-shaped: the branes merge at some finite value of the radius. The second one is disconnected and extends along the entire radial direction at fixed angular separation. We interpret these two configurations as corresponding to chiral-symmetry breaking and preserving phases, respectively.We present a simple diagnostic tool to examine the classical stability of the embedding, based on the concavity/convexity conditions for the relevant thermodynamic potentials. We use this criterion to show that U-shaped probes that explore the walking region are unstable, hence providing a dynamical origin for the tachyonic mode found in the literature. Whenever this occurs, the disconnected solution becomes favored energetically. We find that in one of the two classes of backgrounds the U-shaped embedding is always unstable, and thus never realized dynamically. Consequently, these models cannot be used to describe chiral-symmetry breaking. In the second category of solutions, our analysis reveals the presence of a first-order phase transition between chiral-symmetry broken and restored phases. Interestingly, this is in the same class that contains a parametrically light scalar in the spectrum of glueballs of the dual field theory.

No-scale D-term inflation with stabilized moduli

We study the consistency of hybrid inflation and moduli stabilization, using the Kallosh–Linde model as an example for the latter. We find that F-term hybrid inflation is not viable since inflationary trajectories are destabilized by tachyonic modes. On the other hand, D-term hybrid inflation is naturally compatible with moduli stabilization due to the absence of a large superpotential term during the inflationary phase. Our model turns out to be equivalent to superconformal D-term inflation and it therefore successfully accounts for the CMB data in the large-field regime. Supersymmetry breaking can be incorporated via an O'Raifeartaigh model. For GUT-scale inflation one obtains stringent bounds on the gravitino mass. A rough estimate yields 105 GeV≲m3/2≲1010 GeV, contrary to naive expectation.

Tachyonic Cherenkov emission from Jupiterʼs radio electrons

Abstract Tachyonic Cherenkov radiation from inertial relativistic electrons in the Jovian radiation belts is studied. The tachyonic modes are coupled to a frequency-dependent permeability tensor and admit a negative mass-square, rendering them superluminal and dispersive. The superluminal radiation field can be cast into Maxwellian form, using 3D field strengths and inductions, and the spectral densities of tachyonic Cherenkov radiation are derived. The negative mass-square gives rise to a longitudinal flux component. A spectral fit to Jupiterʼs radio spectrum, inferred from ground-based observations and the Cassini 2001 fly-by, is performed with tachyonic Cherenkov flux densities averaged over a thermal electron population.

Solutions of massive gravity theories in constant scalar invariant geometries

We solve massive gravity field equations in the framework of locally homogenous and vanishing scalar invariant (VSI) Lorentzian spacetimes, which in three dimensions are the building blocks of constant scalar invariant (CSI) spacetimes. At first, we provide an exhaustive list of all Lorentzian three-dimensional homogeneous spaces and then we determine the Petrov type of the relevant curvature tensors. Among these geometries we determine for which values of their structure constants they are solutions of the field equations of massive gravity theories with a cosmological constant. The homogeneous solutions obtained are all of various Petrov types: , , II, III, Dt, Ds, N, O; the VSI geometries which we found are of Petrov type III. The Petrov types II and III are new explicit CSI space-time solutions of these types. We also examine the conditions under which the obtained anti-de Sitter solutions are free of tachyonic massive graviton modes.

GEOMETRIC TACHYON AND WARM INFLATION

The inflationary models developed in presence of a background radiation can be a solution to the reheating problem faced by common cold (isentropic) inflationary scenario. A D-brane system comprising of k Neuvo–Schwarz (NS) 5-branes with a transverse circle and BPS D3-branes with world volume parallel to the NS 5-branes, placed at a point on the transverse circle diametrically to NS 5-brane has a point of unstable equilibrium and the D3-brane has a geometric tachyonic mode associated with displacement of the brane along the circle. Cold inflationary scenario has been studied in connection with this geometric tachyon [S. Panda, M. Sami and S. Tsujikawa, Phys. Rev. D73, 023515 (2006)] where it was found that one needs a background of minimum 104 branes to realize a viable inflationary model. In this piece of work, we have tried to study a model of inflation driven by this geometric tachyon in presence of radiation. We have found that compared to the isentropic scenario, to satisfy the observational bounds, the number of background branes required in this case reduces drastically and a viable model can be obtained with even six to seven NS 5-branes in the background. In this context, we have also analyzed the non-gaussianity associated with the model and observed that the concerned parameter lies well within the observation limit.

Phantom dark energy with tachyonic instability: Metric perturbations

We study the evolution of metric perturbations in a model of UV-stable phantom dark energy. The model has tachyon instabilities at long wavelengths. We find that like the tachyon modes themselves, metric perturbations grow exponentially in time, starting from very small values determined by vacuum fluctuations, and may become sizeable at late times. We derive a constraint on the model parameters that follows from requiring that the metric perturbation amplitudes not be exceedingly large today.

GUT scalar potentials for Higgs inflation

Motivated by the idea that there is new physics beyond the Standard Model (SM), we have investigated a number of models for Grand Unified Theories (GUTS) in four dimensions for the possibility that their Higgs fields might be responsible for inflation in the early universe. In addition to models having an intrinsic Planck mass parameter, we have entertained classically scale invariant models in which the Planck scale itself as well as the GUT scale is induced by spontaneous breaking of the gauge symmetry. We found that in non-supersymmetric SU(5) with the usual Higgs in the adjoint representation but with large non-minimal coupling to the curvature, there appear to be several possible flat directions that might lead to inflation. Interestingly, the one of lowest energy is the breaking into SU(3)⊗SU(2)⊗U(1) that is suggested by gauge coupling unification. Further, we show that this flat direction is stable against small fluctuations in other directions.We attempted to extend this to similar supersymmetric GUTS, both global and supergravity, but did not succeed in finding a phenomenologically acceptable model of this type, with a “minimal” Kähler potential augmented only by terms characterised by dimensionless coupling constants. As is often the case, such models suffered either from a negative vacuum energy or from tachyonic modes. We also considered a variant of an “inverted hierarchy” model in which the GUT scale is set by dimensional transmutation, but were unable to find a phenomenologically acceptable model.

Axion monodromy in a model of holographic gluodynamics

The low energy field theory for N type IIA D4-branes at strong 't Hooft coupling, wrapped on a circle with antiperiodic boundary conditions for fermions, is known to have a vacuum energy which depends on the $\theta$ angle for the gauge fields, and which is a multivalued function of this angle. This gives a field-theoretic realization of "axion monodromy" for a nondynamical axion. We construct the supergravity solution dual to the field theory in the metastable state which is the adiabatic continuation of the vacuum to large values of $\theta$. We compute the energy of this state and show that it initially rises quadratically and then flattens out. We show that the glueball mass decreases with $\theta$, becoming much lower than the 5d KK scale governing the UV completion of this model. We construct two different classes of domain walls interpolating between adjacent vacua. We identify a number of instability modes -- nucleation of domain walls, bulk Casimir forces, and condensation of tachyonic winding modes in the bulk -- which indicate that the metastable branch eventually becomes unstable. Finally, we discuss two phenomena which can arise when the axion is dynamical; axion-driven inflation, and axion strings.

ON BLACK HOLE STABILITY IN CRITICAL GRAVITIES

We consider extended cosmological gravities with Ricci tensor and scalar squared terms in diverse dimensions. These theories admit solutions of Einstein metrics, including the Schwarzschild–Tangherlini AdS black holes, whose mass and entropy vanish at the critical point. We perform linearized analysis around the black holes and show that in general the spectrum consists of the usual spin-2 massless and ghost massive modes. We demonstrate that there is no exponentially-growing tachyon mode in the black holes. At the critical point, the massless spin-2 modes have zero energy whilst the massive spin-2 modes are replaced by the log modes. There always exist certain linear combination of massless and log modes that has negative energy. Thus the stability of the black holes requires that the log modes to be truncated out by the boundary condition.

Stability analysis of 5D gravitational solutions withNbulk scalar fields

We study the stability of 5D gravitational solutions containing an arbitrary number of scalar fields. A closed set of equations is derived which governs the background and perturbations of N scalar fields and the metric, for arbitrary bulk and boundary scalar potentials. In particular the effect of the energy-momentum tensor of the scalar fields on the geometry is fully taken into account, together with all the perturbations of the system. The equations are explicitly written as an eigenvalue problem, which can be readily solved to determine the stability of the system and obtain the properties of the fluctuations, such as masses and couplings. As an example, we study a dynamical soft-wall model with two bulk scalar fields used to model the hadron spectrum of QCD and the Higgs sector of electroweak physics. It is shown that there are no tachyonic modes, and that there is a (radion) mode whose mass is suppressed by a large logarithm compared to that of the other Kaluza-Klein modes.

The heterotic string at high temperature (or with strong supersymmetry breaking)

Perturbative heterotic string theory develops a single complex tachyonic mode beyond the Hagedorn temperature. We calculate the quartic effective potential for this tachyonic mode at the critical temperature. Equivalently, we determine the quartic effective potential for strong supersymmetric breaking via anti-perdiodic boundary conditions for fermions on a small circle. We give many details of the heterotic tachyon scattering amplitudes, including a unitarity check to fix all normalization constants. We discuss difficulties in obtaining an effective action valid at all radii. We argue that in certain variables, the quartic term in the potential is radius independent. Speculations on the properties of a new strongly curved phase that could occur after tachyon condensation are offered.

Can holography reproduce the QCD Wilson line?

Recently a remarkable agreement was found between lattice simulations of long Wilson lines and behavior of the Nambu Goto string in flat space-time. However, the latter fails to fit the short distance behavior since it admits a tachyonic mode for a string shorter than a critical length. In this paper we examine the question of whether a classical holographic Wilson line can reproduce the lattice results for Wilson lines of any length. We determine the condition on the the gravitational background to admit a Coulombic potential at short distances. We analyze the system using three different renormalization schemes. We perform an explicit best fit comparison of the lattice results with the holographic models based on near extremal D3 and D4 branes, non-critical near extremal AdS6 model and the Klebanov Strassler model. We find that all the holographic models examined admit after renormalization a constant term in the potential. We argue that the curves of the lattice simulation also have such a constant term and we discuss its physical interpretation.

SCALAR FIELD THEORY ON κ-MINKOWSKI SPACE–TIME AND TRANSLATION AND LORENTZ INVARIANCE

We investigate the properties of κ-Minkowski space–time by using representations of the corresponding deformed algebra in terms of undeformed Heisenberg–Weyl algebra. The deformed algebra consists of κ-Poincaré algebra extended with the generators of the deformed Weyl algebra. The part of deformed algebra, generated by rotation, boost and momentum generators, is described by the Hopf algebra structure. The approach used in our considerations is completely Lorentz covariant. We further use an advantage of this approach to consistently construct a star product, which has a property that under integration sign, it can be replaced by a standard pointwise multiplication, a property that was since known to hold for Moyal but not for κ-Minkowski space–time. This star product also has generalized trace and cyclic properties, and the construction alone is accomplished by considering a classical Dirac operator representation of deformed algebra and requiring it to be Hermitian. We find that the obtained star product is not translationally invariant, leading to a conclusion that the classical Dirac operator representation is the one where translation invariance cannot simultaneously be implemented along with hermiticity. However, due to the integral property satisfied by the star product, noncommutative free scalar field theory does not have a problem with translation symmetry breaking and can be shown to reduce to an ordinary free scalar field theory without nonlocal features and tachyonic modes and basically of the very same form. The issue of Lorentz invariance of the theory is also discussed.

No large scale curvature perturbations during the waterfall phase transition of hybrid inflation

In this paper the possibility of generating large scale curvature perturbations induced from the entropic perturbations during the waterfall phase transition of standard hybrid inflation model is studied. We show that whether or not appreciable amounts of large scale curvature perturbations are produced during the waterfall phase transition depend crucially on the competition between the classical and the quantum mechanical back-reactions to terminate inflation. If one considers only the classical evolution of the system we show that the highly blue-tilted entropy perturbations induce highly blue-tilted large scale curvature perturbations during the waterfall phase transition which dominate over the original adiabatic curvature perturbations. However, we show that the quantum back-reactions of the waterfall field inhomogeneities produced during the phase transition dominate completely over the classical back-reactions. The cumulative quantum back-reactions of very small scales tachyonic modes terminate inflation very efficiently and shut off the curvature perturbations evolution during the waterfall phase transition. This indicates that the standard hybrid inflation model is safe under large scale curvature perturbations during the waterfall phase transition.

Moduli stabilisation on the worldsheet

We consider compactifications of type II string theory using exact internal CFT’s with central charge c = 9 + ϵ, |ϵ| ≪ 1, leading to an effective potential for the dilaton. For ϵ > 0 the potential is positive and the dilaton is ultimately driven to weak coupling. For ϵ < 0 the dilaton is driven to strong coupling, but we can stabilise the background by including D-branes. The resulting minimum admits an AdS 4 solution where the cosmological constant is of the order ϵ 3 and the string coupling constant is of order ϵ. Furthermore these CFT’s typically do not possess any massless or tachyonic modes. Thus these vacua provide exact CFT descriptions of moduli stabilisation in weakly coupled string theory.

Stability of gravity-scalar systems for domain-wall models with a soft wall

We show that it is possible to create an RS soft-wall model, a model with a compact extra dimension, without using fundamental branes. All that is required are bulk scalar fields minimally coupled to gravity. Of crucial importance is the stability of the size of the extra dimension. Without branes, one cannot easily implement the Goldberger-Wise mechanism, and instead it must be shown that the scalar configuration is stable in its own right. We use the superpotential approach for generating solutions, the so called 'fake supergravity' scenario, and show that configurations generated in such a way are always free of tachyonic modes. Furthermore, we show that the model is also free of zero modes (in the spin-0 sector) if all the scalars have odd parity. We discuss the hierarchy problem in soft-wall models, and applications of our analysis to the AdS/QCD correspondence.

Stability of scalar fields in warped extra dimensions

This work sets up a general theoretical framework to study stability of models with a warped extra dimension where N scalar fields couple minimally to gravity. Our analysis encompasses Randall-Sundrum models with branes and bulk scalars, and general domain-wall models. We derive the Schrödinger equation governing the spin-0 spectrum of perturbations of such a system. This result is specialized to potentials generated using fake supergravity, and we show that models without branes are free of tachyonic modes. Turning to the existence of zero modes, we prove a criterion which relates the number of normalizable zero modes to the parities of the scalar fields. Constructions with definite parity and only odd scalars are shown to be free of zero modes and are hence perturbatively stable. We give two explicit examples of domain-wall models with a soft wall, one which admits a zero mode and one which does not. The latter is an example of a model that stabilizes a compact extra dimension using only bulk scalars and does not require dynamical branes.