Strings, Branes and Cosmology: What can we hope to learn?

Abstract

This article briefly summarizes the motivations for -- and recent progress in -- searching for cosmological configurations within string theory, with a focus on how much we might reasonably hope to learn about fundamental physics from precision cosmological measurements.

Some references added; Invited contribution to the 40th Rencontres de Moriond, La Thuile, March 2006. (LaTeX 10 pages)

Cited by in corpus (7)

• Progress in D-brane model building
• Bouncing and Accelerating Solutions in Nonlocal Stringy Models
• D3-brane Vacua in Stabilized Compactifications
• Large Gravitational Waves and Lyth Bound in Multi Brane Inflation
• Enhanced (p)reheating in DBI Inflation
• Potential for the slow-roll inflation, mass scale hierarchy and Dark Energy from the Type IIA supergravity
• Intersecting Brane Models and Cosmology