Short distance modifications to Newton's law in SUSY braneworld scenarios

TL;DR

This paper investigates how moduli fields in 5-D supersymmetric braneworld models modify Newton's law at short distances, with explicit calculations for dilatonic scenarios and implications for heterotic M-theory.

Contribution

It provides a general analysis of short-distance modifications to Newton's law due to moduli in SUSY braneworlds, including explicit solutions for exponential superpotentials.

Findings

Short-distance Newtonian potential gains non-trivial contributions from moduli.

Explicit form of potential correction for exponential superpotentials.

Application to 5-D Heterotic M-theory scenarios.

Abstract

In braneworld models coming from string theory one generally encounters massless scalar degrees of freedom -moduli- parameterizing the volume of small compact extra-dimensions. Here we discuss the effects of such moduli on Newton's law for a fairly general 5-D supersymmetric braneworld scenario with a bulk scalar field $\phi$. We show that the Newtonian potential describing the gravitational interaction between two bodies localized on the visible brane picks up a non-trivial contribution at short distances that depends on the shape of the superpotential $W(\phi)$ of the theory. In particular, we compute this contribution for dilatonic braneworld scenarios $W(\phi) = e^{\alpha \phi}$ (where $\alpha$ is a constant) and discuss the particular case of 5-D Heterotic M-theory.