Universal aspects of gravity localized on thick branes

Jan, 2000
30 pages
Published in:
  • Nucl.Phys.B 581 (2000) 309-338
e-Print:
Report number:
  • PUPT-1912

Citations per year

199920062013202020250102030405060
Abstract:
We study gravity in backgrounds that are smooth generalizations of the Randall-Sundrum model, with and without scalar fields. These generalizations include three-branes in higher dimensional spaces which are not necessarily Anti-de Sitter far from the branes, intersecting brane configurations and configurations involving negative tension branes. We show that under certain mild assumptions there is a universal equation for the gravitational fluctuations. We study both the graviton ground state and the continuum of Kaluza-Klein modes and we find that the four-dimensional gravitational mode is localized precisely when the effects of the continuum modes decouple at distances larger than the fundamental Planck scale. The decoupling is contingent only on the long-range behaviour of the metric from the brane and we find a universal form for the corrections to Newton's Law. We also comment on the possible contribution of resonant modes. Given this, we find general classes of metrics which maintain localized four-dimensional gravity. We find that three-brane metrics in five dimensions can arise from a single scalar field source, and we rederive the BPS type conditions without any a priori assumptions regarding the form of the scalar potential. We also show that a single scalar field cannot produce conformally-flat locally intersecting brane configurations or a p-brane in greater than (p+2)-dimensions.
  • gravitation: fluctuation
  • membrane model
  • Kaluza-Klein model
  • space-time: higher-dimensional
  • field theory: scalar
  • tensor: energy-momentum
  • invariance: Poincare
  • graviton
  • domain wall
  • bibliography