Particle theory

Abstract:

Measurements of the SNe Ia Hubble diagram which suggest that the universe is accelerating due to the effect of dark energy may be biased because we are located in a 200-300 Mpc underdense "void" which is expanding 20-30% faster than the average rate. With the smaller global Hubble parameter, the WMAP-5 data on cosmic microwave background anisotropies can be fitted without requiring dark energy if there is some excess power in the spectrum of primordial perturbations on 100 Mpc scales. The SDSS data on galaxy clustering can also be fitted if there is a small component of hot dark matter in the form of 0.5 eV mass neutrinos. We show however that if the primordial fluctuations are gaussian, the expected variance of the Hubble parameter and the matter density are far too small to allow such a large local void. Nevertheless many such large voids have been identified in the SDSS LRG survey in a search for the late-ISW effect due to dark energy. The observed CMB temperature decrements imply that they are nearly empty, thus these real voids too are in gross conflict with the concordance LCDM model. The recently observed high peculiar velocity flow presents another challenge for the model. Therefore whether a large local void actually exists must be tested through observations and cannot be dismissed a priori.

Abstract:

We consider local models of magnetised D7 branes in IIB string compactifications, focussing on cases where an explicit metric can be written for the local 4-cycle. The presence of an explicit metric allows analytic expressions for the gauge bundle and for the chiral matter wavefunctions through solving the Dirac and Laplace equations. The triple overlap of the normalised matter wavefunctions generates the physical Yukawa couplings. Our main examples are the cases of D7 branes on P1xP1 and P2. We consider both supersymmetric and non-supersymmetric gauge backgrounds and both Abelian and non-Abelian gauge bundles. We briefly outline potential phenomenological applications of our results.