10085298
Defect formation with bulk fields
It has recently been realized that brane-antibrane annihilation (a possible explanation for ending inflation) may result in defect formation, due to the dynamics of the tachyon field. Studies of this possibility have generally ignored the interaction of the brane fields with fields in the bulk; recently it has been argued [G. Dvali and A. Vilenkin, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 03 (2004) 010.] that interactions with bulk fields suppress or even eliminate defect formation. To investigate the impact of bulk fields on brane defect formation, we construct a toy model that captures the essential features of the tachyon condensation with bulk fields. We study the structure of defects in this toy model, and simulate their formation and evolution on the lattice. We find that, while the energetics and interactions of defects are influenced by the size of the extra dimension and the bulk-brane coupling, the bulk-brane coupling does not prevent the formation of a defect network.
18843095
Classical sphaleron rate on fine lattices
We measure the sphaleron rate for hot, classical Yang-Mills theory on the lattice, in order to study its dependence on lattice spacing. By using a topological definition of Chern-Simons number and going to extremely fine lattices [up to $\ensuremath{\beta}=32,$ or lattice spacing ${a=1/(8g}^{2}T)]$ we demonstrate nontrivial scaling. The topological susceptibility, converted to physical units, falls with lattice spacing on fine lattices in a way which is consistent with linear dependence on a (the Arnold-Son-Yaffe scaling relation) and is difficult to reconcile with a nonzero continuum limit. We also explain some unusual behavior of the rate in small volumes, reported by Ambj\o{}rn and Krasnitz.
119279378
Bjorken flow, plasma instabilities, and thermalization
A bstractAt asymptotically high energies, thermalization in heavy ion collisions can be described via weak-coupling QCD. We present a complete treatment of how thermalization proceeds, at the parametric weak-coupling level. We show that plasma instabilities dominate the dynamics, from immediately after the collision until well after the plasma becomes nearly in equilibrium. Initially they drive the system close to isotropy, but Bjorken expansion and increasing diluteness makes the system again become more anisotropic. At time $ \tau \sim {\alpha^{{\frac{{ - 12}}{5}}}}Q_s^{{ - 1}} $ the dynamics become dominated by a nearly-thermal bath; and at time $ \tau \sim {\alpha^{{\frac{{ - 5}}{2}}}}Q_s^{{ - 1}} $ the bath comes to dominate the energy density, completing thermalization. After this time there is a nearly isotropic and thermal Quark-Gluon Plasma.
119023526
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 $\ensuremath{\Lambda}$ 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 $\ensuremath{\Lambda}\ensuremath{\lesssim}3\mathrm{MeV}$ for consistency with the cosmic gamma ray background. We also show that theories of ghosts with a Lorentz-conserving cutoff are completely excluded.
118416779
Next-to-leading order thermal photon production in a weakly coupled quark-gluon plasma
A bstractWe compute the next-to-leading order O(g) correction to the thermal photon production rate in a QCD plasma. The NLO contributions can be expressed in terms of gauge invariant condensates on the light cone, which are amenable to novel sum rules and Euclidean techniques. We expect these technologies to be generalizable to other NLO calculations. For the phenomenologically interesting value of αs = 0.3, the NLO correction represents a 20% increase and has a functional form similar to the LO result.
10799212
Classical field dynamics of the electroweak phase transition
We investigate the thermodynamics and dynamics of the electroweak phase transition by modeling the infrared physics with classical Yang-Mills Higgs theory. We discuss the accuracy of this approach and conclude that, for quantities whose determination is dominated by the infrared, the classical method should be correct up to parametrically suppressed [i.e., O({alpha})] corrections. For a Higgs self-coupling which at the tree level corresponds to m{sub H}{approx_equal}50 GeV, we determine the jump in the order parameter to be {delta}{phi}=1.5gT, the surface tension to be {sigma}=0.07g{sup 4}T{sup 3}, and the friction coefficient on the moving bubble wall due to infrared bosons to be {eta}{equivalent_to}P/v{sub w}=0.03{plus_minus}0.004g{sup 6}T{sup 4}. We also investigate the response of the Chern-Simons number to a spatially uniform chemical potential and find that it falls off a short distance inside the bubble wall, both in equilibrium and below the equilibrium temperature. {copyright} {ital 1997} {ital The American Physical Society}
6777210
Remarks on tachyon condensation in superstring field theory
We generalize recent results on tachyon condensation in boundary string field theory to the superstring.
15664546
Some exact results on tachyon condensation in string field theory
The study of open string tachyon condensation in string field theory can be drastically simplified by making an appropriate choice of coordinates on the space of string fields. We show that a very natural coordinate system is suggested by the connection between the worldsheet renormalization group and spacetime physics. In this system only one field, the tachyon, condenses while all other fields have vanishing expectation values. These coordinates are also well-suited to the study of D-branes as solitons. We use them to show that the tension of the D25-brane is cancelled by tachyon condensation and compute exactly the profiles and tensions of lower dimensional D-branes.
119635081
D-branes, Quivers, and ALE Instantons
Effective field theories in type I and II superstring theories for D-branes located at points in the orbifold C^2/Z_n are supersymmetric gauge theories whose field content is conveniently summarized by a `quiver diagram,' and whose Lagrangian includes non-metric couplings to the orbifold moduli: in particular, twisted sector moduli couple as Fayet-Iliopoulos terms in the gauge theory. These theories describe D-branes on resolved ALE spaces. Their spaces of vacua are moduli spaces of smooth ALE metrics and Yang-Mills instantons, whose metrics are explicitly computable. For U(N) instantons, the construction exactly reproduces results of Kronheimer and Nakajima.
14157041
Setting the Quantum Integrand of M-Theory
In anomaly-free quantum field theories the integrand in the bosonic functional integral—the exponential of the effective action after integrating out fermions—is often defined only up to a phase without an additional choice. We term this choice ``setting the quantum integrand''. In the low-energy approximation to M-theory the E8-model for the C-field allows us to set the quantum integrand using geometric index theory. We derive mathematical results of independent interest about pfaffians of Dirac operators in 8k+3 dimensions, both on closed manifolds and manifolds with boundary. These theorems are used to set the quantum integrand of M-theory for closed manifolds and for compact manifolds with either temporal (global) or spatial (local) boundary conditions. In particular, we show that M-theory makes sense on arbitrary 11-manifolds with spatial boundary, generalizing the construction of heterotic M-theory on cylinders.
18477851
Arithmetic and Attractors
We study relations between some topics in number theory and supersymmetric black holes. These relations are based on the ``attractor mechanism'' of N=2 supergravity. In IIB string compactification this mechanism singles out certain ``attractor varieties.'' We show that these attractor varieties are constructed from products of elliptic curves with complex multiplication for N=4 and N=8 compactifications. The heterotic dual theories are related to rational conformal field theories. In the case of N=4 theories U-duality inequivalent backgrounds with the same horizon area are counted by the class number of a quadratic imaginary field. The attractor varieties are defined over fields closely related to class fields of the quadratic imaginary field. We discuss some extensions to more general Calabi-Yau compactifications and explore further connections to arithmetic including connections to Kronecker's Jugendtraum and the theory of modular heights. The paper also includes a short review of the attractor mechanism. A much shorter version of the paper summarizing the main points is the companion note entitled ``Attractors and Arithmetic'' (hep-th/9807056).