Brane Gases on K3 and Calabi-Yau Manifolds

TL;DR

This paper explores brane gas cosmology on K3 and Calabi-Yau manifolds, demonstrating how such compactifications can connect string theory models to realistic particle physics and address the universe's dimensionality.

Contribution

It extends brane gas cosmology to non-trivial holonomy manifolds like K3 and Calabi-Yau spaces, linking string theory compactifications with cosmological dynamics.

Findings

Brane gases on K3 and Calabi-Yau manifolds maintain cosmological successes.

Duality symmetries relate models to N=2 theories in four dimensions.

The model suggests a non-singular universe with three large spatial dimensions.

Abstract

We initiate the study of Brane Gas Cosmology (BGC) on manifolds with non-trivial holonomy. Such compactifications are required within the context of superstring theory in order to make connections with realistic particle physics. We study the dynamics of brane gases constructed from various string theories on background spaces having a K3 submanifold. The K3 compactifications provide a stepping stone for generalising the model to the case of a full Calabi-Yau three-fold. Duality symmetries are discussed within a cosmological context. Using a duality, we arrive at an N=2 theory in four-dimensions compactified on a Calabi-Yau manifold with SU(3) holonomy. We argue that the Brane Gas model compactified on such spaces maintains the successes of the trivial toroidal compactification while greatly enhancing its connection to particle physics. The initial state of the universe is taken to be a small, hot and dense gas of p-branes near thermal equilibrium. The universe has no initial singularity and the dynamics of string winding modes allow three spatial dimensions to grow large, providing a possible solution to the dimensionality problem of string theory.