M-Theory Moduli Space and Cosmology

Abstract

We conduct a systematic search for a viable string/M-theory cosmology, focusing on cosmologies that include an era of slow-roll inflation, after which the moduli are stabilized and the Universe is in a state with an acceptably small cosmological constant. We observe that the duality relations between different cosmological backgrounds of string/M-theory moduli space are greatly simplified, and that this simplification leads to a truncated moduli space within which possible cosmological solutions lie. We review some known challenges to four dimensional models in the "outer", perturbative, region of moduli space, and use duality relations to extend them to models of all of the (compactified) perturbative string theories and 11D supergravity, including brane world models. We conclude that cosmologies restricted to the outer region are not viable, and that the most likely region of moduli space in which to find realistic cosmology is the "central", non-perturbative region, with coupling and compact volume both of order unity, in string units.

42 pages, 3 figures

References in corpus (5)

• The Pre-Big Bang Scenario in String Cosmology
• A Perturbative Window into Non-Perturbative Physics
• Lectures on string/brane cosmology
• Solitonic D-branes and brane annihilation
• Vector Bundle Moduli Superpotentials in Heterotic Superstrings and M-Theory

Cited by in corpus (10)

• Towards Inflation in String Theory
• Brane-World Gravity
• The effective theory of type IIA AdS4 compactifications on nilmanifolds and cosets
• On the Cosmology of Type IIA Compactifications on SU(3)-structure Manifolds
• Phase Space Analysis of Quintessence Cosmologies with a Double Exponential Potential
• Accelerating Universes and String Theory
• Dilaton Dynamics from Production of Tensionless Membranes
• Models of Modular Inflation and Their Phenomenological Consequences
• The Dynamics of Brane-World Cosmological Models
• Cosmic acceleration in models with density dependent moduli