Dynamics of M-theory vacua

TL;DR

This paper explores the early universe's non-equilibrium dynamics, analyzing transitions between different vacuum states, and suggests that the resulting eternal inflation leads to diverse low-energy parameters, with implications for the strong CP problem and quark mass spectrum.

Contribution

It introduces a framework for understanding early vacuum transitions in M-theory, highlighting the dominance of large parameter jumps and linking vacuum dynamics to observable quark mass spectra.

Findings

Transitions favor large parameter differences over small ones.

The quark mass spectrum can be explained by a flat distribution in brane intersection areas.

The spectrum's scale invariance relates to the maximum intersection area in braneworld models.

Abstract

At very early times, the universe was not in a vacuum state. Under the assumtion that the deviation from equillibrium was large, in particular that it is higher than the scale of inflation, we analyse the conditions for local transitions between states that are related to different vacua. All pathways lead to an attractor solution of a description of the universe by eternal inflation with domains that have different low energy parameters. The generic case favors transitions between states that have significantly different parameters rather than jumps between nearby states in parameter space. I argue that the strong CP problem presents a potential difficulty for this picture, more difficult than the hierarchy problem or the cosmological constant problem. Finally, I describe how the spectrum of quark masses may be a probe of the early dynamics of vacuum states. As an example, by specializing to the case of intersecting braneworld models, I show that the observed mass spectrum, which is approximately scale invariant, corresponds to a flat distribution in the intersection area of the branes, with a maximum area A_max ~ 100 alpha'.