Year: 2018
Type: dissertation
Abstract: The experimental proof for the existence of positive vacuum energy in the universe is overwhelming. In the context of string theory this implies that we need to search for low energy states of the universe with positive vacuum energy, called de Sitter vacua. One of the ruling ideas is that string theory contains an extremely large quantity of such vacuum states, named the landscape. If correct this changes drastically how we should address fundamental questions in physics that question the origin of the laws of physics, since many possible universes are consistent, each having different laws of physics. This project aims at demonstrating that string theory might have far less of such low energy states than assumed so far. This could help bring string phenomenology out of its current impasse and demonstrate its predictive character. To achieve this goal we intend to calculate the gravitational back reaction of the branes that are used in the construction of the landscape of meta-stable de Sitter vacua. The back reaction reveals the (in)stability of a de Sitter solution and it is expected to put strong constraints on the currently understood landscape or even invalidate (large parts of) it. We will furthermore develop novel techniques to construct de Sitter vacua and we intendto demonstrate how brane back reaction constrains also the consistency of these novel constructions.
Source: Lirias
Author: Diaz Dorronsoro, J.
Language: English
Subfield: Nuclear and High Energy Physics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7008104520