On the origin of thermal string gas

TL;DR

This paper explores how decaying D-branes can generate a thermal string gas in cosmology, showing that certain initial conditions lead to a universe with three large spatial dimensions.

Contribution

It proposes a mechanism where low-dimensional branes evolve into a thermal string gas, influencing the growth of three large spatial dimensions in string cosmology.

Findings

Decaying D-branes can produce thermal string gases under specific conditions.

The evolution of the dilaton can be driven to values with three large spatial dimensions.

A range of weak coupling and decay times supports this cosmological scenario.

Abstract

We investigate decaying D-branes as the origin of the thermal string gas of string gas cosmology. We consider initial configurations of low-dimensional branes and argue that they can time evolve to thermal string gas. We find that there is a range in the weak string coupling and fast brane decay time regimes, where the initial configuration could drive the evolution of the dilaton to values, where exactly three spacelike directions grow large.