We Probably Live On An Inflating Brane-World

Abstract

Brane-world models where observers are trapped within the thickness of a 3-brane offer novel perspectives on gravitation and cosmology. In this essay, I would argue that the problem of a late epoch acceleration of the universe is well explained in the framework of a 4-dimensional de Sitter universe embedded in a 5-dimensional de Sitter spacetime. While a 5D anti de Sitter space background is important for studying conformal field theories -- for its role in the AdS/CFT correspondence -- the existence of a 5-dimensional de Sitter space is crucial for finding an effective 4D Newton constant that remains finite and a normalizable zero-mode graviton wave function.

8 pages, latex (Essay received Honourable mention in Gravity Research Foundation essay competition 2011)

References in corpus (7)

• Dynamics of dark energy
• De Sitter brane-world, localization of gravity, and the cosmological constant
• Extra dimensions, warped compactifications and cosmic acceleration
• Accelerating universe from warped extra dimensions
• Warped compactification to de Sitter space
• Simple cosmological de Sitter solutions on dS${}_4\times Y_6$ spaces
• The warping of extra spaces accelerates the expansion of the universe