No Arabic abstract
We examine the late-time (nucleosynthesis and later) cosmological implications of brane-world scenarios having large (millimeter sized) extra dimensions. In particular, recent proposals for understanding why the extra dimensions are so large in these models indicate that moduli like the radion appear (to four-dimensional observers) to be extremely light, with a mass of order 10^{-33} eV, allowing them to play the role of the light scalar of quintessence models. The radion-as-quintessence solves a long-standing problem since its small mass is technically natural, in that it is stable against radiative corrections. Its challenges are to explain why such a light particle has not been seen in precision tests of gravity, and why Newtons constant has not appreciably evolved since nucleosynthesis. We find the couplings suggested by stabilization models can provide explanations for both of these questions. We identify the features which must be required of any earlier epochs of cosmology in order for these explanations to hold.
Brane cosmology presents many interesting possibilities including: phantom acceleration (w<-1), self-acceleration, unification of dark energy with inflation, transient acceleration, loitering cosmology, new singularities at which the Hubble parameter remains finite, cosmic mimicry, etc. The existence of a time-like extra dimension can result in a singularity-free cyclic cosmology.
We present a case that current observations may already indicate new gravitational physics on cosmological scales. The excess of power seen in the Lyman-alpha forest and small-scale CMB experiments, the anomalously large bulk flows seen both in peculiar velocity surveys and in kinetic SZ, and the higher ISW cross-correlation all indicate that structure may be more evolved than expected from LCDM. We argue that these observations find a natural explanation in models with infinite-volume (or, at least, cosmological-size) extra dimensions, where the graviton is a resonance with a tiny width. The longitudinal mode of the graviton mediates an extra scalar force which speeds up structure formation at late times, thereby accounting for the above anomalies. The required graviton Compton wavelength is relatively small compared to the present Hubble radius, of order 300-600 Mpc. Moreover, with certain assumptions about the behavior of the longitudinal mode on super-Hubble scales, our modified gravity framework can also alleviate the tension with the low quadrupole and the peculiar vanishing of the CMB correlation function on large angular scales, seen both in COBE and WMAP. This relies on a novel mechanism that cancels a late-time ISW contribution against the primordial Sachs-Wolfe amplitude.
A recently proposed mechanism for large-scale structure in string cosmology --based on massless axionic seeds-- is further analyzed and extended to the acoustic-peak region. Existence, structure, and normalization of the peaks turn out to depend crucially on the overall evolution of extra dimensions during the pre-big bang phase: conversely, precise cosmic microwave background anisotropy data in the acoustic-peak region will provide, within the next decade, a window on string-theorys extra dimensions before their eventual compactification.
We reconsider theories with low gravitational (or string) scale M_* where Newtons constant is generated via new large-volume spatial dimensions, while Standard Model states are localized to a 3-brane. Utilizing compact hyperbolic manifolds (CHMs) we show that the spectrum of Kaluza-Klein (KK) modes is radically altered. This allows an early universe cosmology with normal evolution up to substantial temperatures, and completely negates the constraints on M_* arising from astrophysics. Furthermore, an exponential hierarchy between the usual Planck scale and the true fundamental scale of physics can emerge with only order unity coefficients. The linear size of the internal space remains small. The proposal has striking testable signatures.
The holographic principle asserts that the entropy of a system cannot exceed its boundary area in Planck units. However, conventional quantum field theory fails to describe such systems. In this Letter, we assume the existence of large $n$ extra dimensions and propose a relationship between UV and IR cutoffs in this case. We find that if $n=2$, this effective field theory could be a good description of holographic systems. If these extra dimensions are detected in future experiments, it will help to prove the validity of the holographic principle. We also discuss implications for the cosmological constant problem.