TY - JOUR
T1 - General considerations of the cosmological constant and the stabilization of moduli in the brane-world picture
AU - Steinhardt, Paul J.
N1 - Funding Information:
The author thanks B. Ovrut and D. Waldram for many conversations and patient tutoring in M -theory and Tom Banks, R. Caldwell, L. Randall and E. Witten for useful discussions. This research was supported by the US Department of Energy grant DE-FG02-91ER40671 (Princeton).
PY - 1999
Y1 - 1999
N2 - We argue that the brane-world picture with matter-fields confined to 4-d domain walls and with gravitational interactions across the bulk disallows adding an arbitrary constant to the low-energy, 4-d effective theory - which finesses the usual cosmological constant problem. The analysis also points to difficulties in stabilizing moduli fields; as an alternative, we suggest scenarios in which the moduli motion is heavily damped by various cosmological mechanisms and varying ultra-slowly with time.
AB - We argue that the brane-world picture with matter-fields confined to 4-d domain walls and with gravitational interactions across the bulk disallows adding an arbitrary constant to the low-energy, 4-d effective theory - which finesses the usual cosmological constant problem. The analysis also points to difficulties in stabilizing moduli fields; as an alternative, we suggest scenarios in which the moduli motion is heavily damped by various cosmological mechanisms and varying ultra-slowly with time.
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U2 - 10.1016/S0370-2693(99)00897-7
DO - 10.1016/S0370-2693(99)00897-7
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:0001785507
SN - 0370-2693
VL - 462
SP - 41
EP - 47
JO - Physics Letters, Section B: Nuclear, Elementary Particle and High-Energy Physics
JF - Physics Letters, Section B: Nuclear, Elementary Particle and High-Energy Physics
IS - 1-2
ER -