The Fate of Massive F-Strings

Abstract

We calculate the semi-inclusive decay rate of an average string state with compactification both in the bosonic string theory and in the superstring theory. We also apply this calculation to a brane-inflation model in a warped geometry and find that the decay rate is greatly suppressed if final strings are all massive and enhanced with one final string massless, which may pose a challenge to this class of models.

23 pages, no figures, harvmac; Better treatment of decay rates, Discussion on massless states added, Changes in the abstract and conclusions, Typos corrected,References added