Big Bang Nucleosynthesis, the CMB, and the Origin of Matter and
  Space-Time
  We summarize some applications of big bang nucleosythesis (BBN) and the
cosmic microwave background (CMB) to constrain the first moments of the
creation of matter in the universe. We review the basic elements of BBN and how
it constraints physics of the radiation-dominated epoch. In particular, how the
existence of higher dimensions impacts the cosmic expansion through the
projection of curvature from the higher dimension in the "dark radiation" term.
We summarize current constraints from BBN and the CMB on this brane-world dark
radiation term. At the same time, the existence of extra dimensions during the
earlier inflation impacts the tensor to scalar ratio and the running spectral
index as measured in the CMB. We summarize how the constraints on inflation
shift when embedded in higher dimensions. Finally, one expects that the
universe was born out of a complicated multiverse landscape near the Planck
time. In these moments the energy scale of superstrings was obtainable during
the early moments of chaotic inflation. We summarize the quest for cosmological
evidence of the birth of space-time out of the string theory landscape. We will
explore the possibility that a superstring excitations may have made itself
known via a coupling to the field of inflation. This may have left an imprint
of "dips" in the power spectrum of temperature fluctuations in the cosmic
microwave background. The identification of this particle as a superstring is
possible because there may be evidence for different oscillator states of the
same superstring that appear on different scales on the sky. It will be shown
that from this imprint one can deduce the mass, number of oscillations, and
coupling constant for the superstring. Although the evidence is marginal, this
may constitute the first observation of a superstring in Nature.
