Studies in String Cosmology : From Chameleons to Chaos

Amanda Weltman

ISBN 10: 363908019X / ISBN 13: 9783639080193

Published by VDM Verlag Dr. Müller, 2008

About this Item

nach der Bestellung gedruckt Neuware - Printed after ordering - In this book we study the problem of modulistabilisation in a cosmological context of stringtheory. Motivated by the moduli stabilisationproblem, we introduce for the first time chameleonfields, so named because their masses and valuesdepend sensitively on the local matter density. Weshow that such fields can evade all local tests ofthe equivalence principle and we make predictions fornear-future tests of gravity in space while drivingthe current phase of cosmic accelerated expansion. Wethen study string corrections to racetrack inflation,a proposal for inflationary dynamics in the contextof flux compactifications. Finally, we study atruncated low energy effective action that models theneighbourhood of special points in moduli space, suchas conifold points, where extra massless degrees offreedom arise. We study moduli dynamics andstabilisation in this context in a cosmologicalbackground and find surprising variety in fielddynamics including the appearance of chaos. The chaosaids in our understanding of the behaviour of modulinear these special points. In particular we find aviable mechanism for trapping some of the moduli nearthese points.

Seller Inventory # 9783639080193

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Studies in String Cosmology : From Chameleons to Chaos
• Publisher: VDM Verlag Dr. Müller
• Publication Date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 363908019X
• ISBN 13: 9783639080193
• Binding: Taschenbuch
• Condition: Neu
• Dimensions: 220W x 150H x 17D millimeters 220 millimeters width by 150 millimeters height by 17 millimeters depth
• Weight: 384 grams

About this title

Synopsis

In this book we study the problem of moduli stabilisation in a cosmological context of string theory. Motivated by the moduli stabilisation problem, we introduce for the first time chameleon fields, so named because their masses and values depend sensitively on the local matter density. We show that such fields can evade all local tests of the equivalence principle and we make predictions for near-future tests of gravity in space while driving the current phase of cosmic accelerated expansion. We then study string corrections to racetrack inflation, a proposal for inflationary dynamics in the context of flux compactifications. Finally, we study a truncated low energy effective action that models the neighbourhood of special points in moduli space, such as conifold points, where extra massless degrees of freedom arise. We study moduli dynamics and stabilisation in this context in a cosmological background and find surprising variety in field dynamics including the appearance of chaos. The chaos aids in our understanding of the behaviour of moduli near these special points. In particular we find a viable mechanism for trapping some of the moduli near these points.

About the Author

Dr. Weltman, daughter of Ivan and Sheina Weltman, grew up in Johannesburg and Cape Town, South Africa. In 2007 she completed her PhD at Columbia University under the supervision of Professor Brian Greene. After a postdoc at Cambridge University, she is currently faculty at the University of Cape Town, where she completed her undergraduate studies.