Late-time dynamics of brane gas cosmology

TL;DR

This paper investigates the late-time behavior of brane gas cosmology, addressing challenges in dimension growth and proposing solutions involving non-static branes, with implications for early universe dynamics and string theory consistency.

Contribution

It provides an analytical and numerical study of late-time brane gas cosmology, introducing a solution with non-static branes and criteria for consistent evolution.

Findings

Decay of winding modes prevents large dimension growth.

Non-static branes can enable universe expansion.

Conditions for a loitering phase to resolve the brane problem.

Abstract

Brane gas cosmology is a scenario inspired by string theory which proposes a simple resolution to the initial singularity problem and gives a dynamical explanation for the number of spatial dimensions of our universe. In this work we have studied analytically and numerically the late-time behaviour of these type of cosmologies taking a proper care of the annihilation of winding modes. This has help us to clarify and extend several aspects of their dynamics. We have found that the decay of winding states into non-winding states behaving like a gas of ordinary non-relativistic particles precludes the existence of a late expansion phase of the universe and obstructs the growth of three large spatial dimensions as we observe today. We propose a generic solution to this problem by considering the dynamics of a gas of non-static branes. We have also obtained a simple criterion on the initial conditions to ensure the small string coupling approximation along the whole dynamical evolution, and consequently, the consistency of an effective low-energy description. Finally, we have reexamined the general conditions for a loitering period in the evolution of the universe which could serve as a mechanism to resolve the {\sl brane problem} - a problem equivalent to the {\sl domain wall problem} in standard cosmology - and discussed the scaling properties of a self-interacting network of winding modes taking into account the effects of the dilaton dynamics.