Warped String Research Articles

Dark radiation and the Hagedorn phase

We point out that if the sector associated with the Standard Model degrees of freedom entered an open string Hagedorn phase in the early universe while the dark radiation sector was not part of this plasma, then this can lead to low values of the observable $\Delta N_{\text{eff}}$ (number of additional neutrinolike species) from the dark radiation. For explicit analysis, we focus on warped string compactifications with the Standard Model degrees of freedom at the bottom of a warped throat. If the Hubble scale during inflation is above the warped string scale associated with the throat, then the Standard Model sector will enter the Hagedorn phase. In this scenario, bulk axions are no longer dangerous from the point of view of dark radiation. While this article focuses on warped compactifications, the basic idea can be relevant to any scenario where the early universe entered a Hagedorn phase.

On warped string vacuum profiles and cosmologies. Part I. Supersymmetric strings

We investigate in detail solutions of supergravity that involve warped products of flat geometries of the type Mp+1× R × TD−p−2 depending on a single coordinate. In the absence of fluxes, the solutions include flat space and Kasner-like vacua that break all supersymmetries. In the presence of a symmetric flux, there are three families of solutions that are characterized by a pair of boundaries and have a singularity at one of them, the origin. The first family comprises supersymmetric vacua, which capture a universal limiting behavior at the origin. The first and second families also contain non-supersymmetric solutions whose behavior at the other boundary, which can lie at a finite or infinite distance, is captured by the no-flux solutions. The solutions of the third family have a second boundary at a finite distance where they approach again the supersymmetric backgrounds. These vacua exhibit a variety of interesting scenarios, which include compactifications on finite intervals and p + 1-dimensional effective theories where the string coupling has an upper bound. We also build corresponding cosmologies, and in some of them the string coupling can be finite throughout the evolution.

On warped string vacuum profiles and cosmologies. Part II. Non-supersymmetric strings

We investigate the effects of the leading tadpole potentials of 10D tachyon-free non-supersymmetric strings in warped products of flat geometries of the type Mp+1× R × T10−p−2 depending on a single coordinate. In the absence of fluxes and for p < 8, there are two families of these vacua for the orientifold disk-level potential, both involving a finite internal interval. Their asymptotics are surprisingly captured by tadpole-free solutions, isotropic for one family and anisotropic at one end for the other. In contrast, for the heterotic torus-level potential there are four types of vacua. Their asymptotics are always tadpole-dependent and isotropic at one end lying at a finite distance, while at the other end, which can lie at a finite or infinite distance, they can be tadpole-dependent isotropic or tadpole-free anisotropic. We then elaborate on the general setup for including symmetric fluxes, and present the three families of exact solutions that emerge when the orientifold potential and a seven-form flux are both present. These solutions include a pair of boundaries, which are always separated by a finite distance. In the neighborhood of one, they all approach a common supersymmetric limit, while the asymptotics at the other boundary can be tadpole-free isotropic, tadpole-free anisotropic or again supersymmetric. We also discuss corresponding cosmologies, with emphasis on their climbing or descending behavior at the initial singularity. In some cases the toroidal dimensions can contract during the cosmological expansion.

Dimensional reduction for D3-brane moduli

Warped string compactifications are central to many attempts to stabilize moduli and connect string theory with cosmology and particle phenomenology. We present a first-principles derivation of the low-energy 4D effective theory from dimensional reduction of a D3-brane in a warped Calabi-Yau compactification of type IIB string theory with imaginary self-dual 3-form flux, including effects of D3-brane motion beyond the probe approximation, and find the metric on the moduli space of brane positions, the universal volume modulus, and axions descending from the 4-form potential. As D3-branes may be considered as carrying either electric or magnetic charges for the self-dual 5-form field strength, we present calculations in both duality frames. Our results are consistent with, but extend significantly, earlier results on the low-energy effective theory arising from D3-branes in string compactifications.

WARPED SELF-GRAVITATING U(1) GAUGE COSMIC STRINGS IN 5D

We present the "classical" Nielsen–Olesen vortex solution on a warped 5-dimensional spacetime, where we solved the effective 4-dimensional equations from the 5-dimensional equations together with the junction and boundary conditions. 4-dimensional cosmic strings show some serious problems concerning the mechanism of string smoothing related to the string mass per unit length, Gμ ≤ 10-6. Moreover, there is no observational evidence of axially symmetric lensing effect caused by cosmic strings. Also super-massive cosmic strings (Gμ ≳ 1), predicted by superstring theory, possess some problems. They are studied because the universe may have undergone phase transitions at scales much higher than the GUT scale. But Gμ ≳ 1 is far above observational bounds, so one needs an inflationary scenario to smooth them out. Further, it is believed that these super-massive strings never extended to macroscopic size. Brane world models could overcome these problems. Gμ could be warped down to GUT scale, even if its value was at the Planck scale. In our warped cosmic string model, where the string mass per unit length in the bulk can be of order of the Planck scale, we find that the 4-dimensional brane spacetime is exponential warped down. Moreover, asymptotically the induced 4-dimensional spacetime does not show conical behavior. So there is no angle deficit compared to its value in the bulk and the spacetime seems to be unphysical, at least under fairly weak assumptions on the stress–energy tensor and without a positive brane tension. The results are confirmed by numerical solutions of the field equations.

On cosmological constants from α′-corrections

We examine to what extent perturbative alpha'-corrections can generate a small cosmological constant in warped string compactifications. Focusing on the heterotic string at lowest order in the string loop expansion, we show that, for a maximally symmetric spacetime, the alpha'-corrected 4D scalar potential has no effect on the cosmological constant. The only relevant terms are instead higher order products of 4D Riemann tensors, which, however, are found to vanish in the usual perturbative regime of the alpha'-expansion. The heterotic string therefore only allows for 4D Minkowski vacua to all orders in alpha', unless one also introduces string loop and/or nonperturbative corrections or allows for curvatures or field strengths that are large in string units. In particular, we find that perturbative alpha'-effects cannot induce weakly curved AdS_4 solutions.

Phenomenology of infrared smooth warped extra dimensions

We study the effect of the infrared (IR) geometry on the phenomenology of warped extra dimensions with gauge and fermion fields in the bulk. We focus in particular on a metric which is AdS in the ultraviolet, but asymptotes to flat space in the IR, breaking conformal symmetry. These metrics can be dialed to approximate well the geometries arising in certain classes of warped string compactifications. We find, similar to our earlier results on the Kaluza-Klein (KK) graviton, that these metrics give rise to phenomenologically significant shifts in the separation of KK gauge modes in the mass spectrum (up to factors of ~2) and their couplings to IR localized fields (up to factors of ~5-10 increase). We find that, despite shifts in the spectra, the constraint m_KK > 3 TeV from S remains robust in the class of 5-d mass gap metrics, and that the change to T is not significant enough to remove the need for custodial symmetry.

Probing the Geometry of Warped String Compactifications at the Large Hadron Collider

Warped string compactifications, characterized by the nonsingular behavior of the metric in the infrared (IR), feature departures from the usual anti-de Sitter warped extra dimensions. We study the implications of the smooth IR cutoff for Randall-Sundrum- (RS-)type models. We find that the phenomenology of the Kaluza-Klein gravitons (including their masses and couplings) depends sensitively on the precise shape of the warp factor in the IR. In particular, we analyze the warped deformed conifold, find that the spectrum differs significantly from that of RS, and present a simple prescription (a mass-gap ansatz) that can be used to study the phenomenology of IR modifications to 5D warped extra dimensions.

Cycling in the throat

We analyse the dynamics of a probe D3-(anti-)brane propagating in a warped string compactification, making use of the Dirac-Born-Infeld action approximation. We also examine the time dependent expansion of such moving branes from the ``mirage cosmology'' perspective, where cosmology is induced by the brane motion in the background spacetime. A range of physically interesting backgrounds are considered: AdS5, Klebanov-Tseytlin and Klebanov-Strassler. Our focus is on exploring what new phenomenology is obtained from giving the brane angular momentum in the extra dimensions. We find that in general, angular momentum creates a centrifugal barrier, causing bouncing cosmologies. More unexpected, and more interesting, is the existence of bound orbits, corresponding to cyclic universes.

Warped spectroscopy: localization of frozen bulk modes

We study the 10D equation of motion of dilaton-axion fluctuations in type IIB string compactifications with three-form flux, taking warping into account. Using simplified models with physics comparable to actual compactifications, we argue that the lightest mode localizes in long warped throats and takes a mass of order the warped string scale. Also, Gukov-Vafa-Witten superpotential is valid for the lightest mass mode; however, the mass is similar to the Kaluza-Klein scale, so the dilaton-axion should be integrated out of the effective theory in this long throat regime (leaving a constant superpotential). On the other hand, there is a large hierarchy between flux-induced and KK mass scales for moderate or weak warping. This hierarchy agrees with arguments given for trivial warping. Along the way, we also estimate the effect of the other 10D supergravity equations of motion on the dilaton-axion fluctuation, since these equations act as constraints. We argue that they give negligible corrections to the simplest approximation.

Anti-D-brane as dark matter in warped string compactification

It is pointed out that in the warped string compactification, motion of anti-D-branes near the bottom of a throat behaves like dark matter. Several scenarios for production of the dark matter are suggested, including one based on the D/anti-D interaction at the late stage of D/anti-D inflation.

Warped flux compactification and brane gravity

We find a simple exact solution for a six-dimensional braneworld whichcaptures some essential features of warped flux compactification, includinga warped geometry, compactification, a magnetic flux and one or two3-brane(s). In this set-up we analyse how the Hubble expansion rate on each brane changeswhen the brane tension changes. It is shown that the effective Newton’s constant resultingfrom this analysis agrees with that inferred by simply integrating extra dimensions out. Onthe basis of the result, a general formula for the effective Newton’s constant is conjecturedand its application to cosmology with type IIB warped string compactification is discussed.

Non-minimally Coupled Tachyonic Inflation in Warped String Background

We show that the non-minimal coupling of tachyon field to the scalar curvature, as proposed by Piao et al, with the chosen coupling parameter does not produce the effective potential where the tachyon field can roll down from T=0 to large $T$ along the slope of the potential. We find a correct choice of the parameters which ensures this requirement and support slow-roll inflation. However, we find that the cosmological parameter found from the analysis of the theory are not in the range obtained from observations. We then invoke warped compactification and varying dilaton field over the compact manifold, as proposed by Raeymaekers, to show that in such a setup the observed parameter space can be ensured.

Tachyonic Inflation in a Warped String Background

We analyze observational constraints on the parameter space of tachyonic inflation with a gaussian potential and discuss some predictions of this scenario. As was shown by Kofman and Linde, it is extremely problematic to achieve the required range of parameters in conventional string compactifications. We investigate if the situation can be improved in more general compactifications with a warped metric and a varying dilaton. The simplest examples are the warped throat geometries that arise in the vicinity of of a large number of space-filling D-branes. We find that the parameter range for inflation can be accommodated in the background of D6-branes wrapping a three-cycle in type-IIA. We comment on the requirements that have to be met in order to realize this scenario in an explicit string compactification.

Bouncing brane cosmologies from warped string compactifications

We study the cosmology induced on a brane probing a warped throat region in a Calabi-Yau compactification of type IIB string theory. For the case of a BPS D3-brane probing the Klebanov-Strassler warped deformed conifold, the cosmology described by a suitable brane observer is a bouncing, spatially flat Friedmann-Robertson-Walker universe with time-varying Newton's constant, which passes smoothly from a contracting to an expanding phase. In the Klebanov-Tseytlin approximation to the Klebanov-Strassler solution the cosmology would end with a big crunch singularity. In this sense, the warped deformed conifold provides a string theory resolution of a spacelike singularity in the brane cosmology. The four-dimensional effective action appropriate for a brane observer is a simple scalar-tensor theory of gravity. In this description of the physics, a bounce is possible because the relevant energy-momentum tensor can classically violate the null energy condition.

A note on warped string compactification

We give a short review of a large class of warped string geometries, obtained via F-theory compactified on Calabi-Yau fourfolds, that upon reduction to 5 dimensions give consistent supersymmetric realizations of the RS compactification scenario.