The Cosmology of Extra Dimensions and Varying Fundamental Constants: A Jenam 2002 Workshop Porto, Portugal 3-5 September 2002

ISBN-13: 9789048162277 / Angielski / Miękka / 2010 / 252 str.

C. J. A. P. Martins

Opis

The workshop on The Cosmology of Extra Dimensions and Varying Fundamental Constants, which was part of JENAM 2002, was held at the Physics Department of the University of Porto (FCUP) from the 3rd to the 5th of September 2002. It was regularly attended by about 110 participants, of which 65 were officially registered in the VFC workshop, while the others came from the rest of the JENAM workshops. There were also a few science correspondents from the national and international press. During the 3 days of the scientific programme, 8 Invited Reviews and 30 Oral Communications were presented. The speakers came from 11 different European countries, and also from Argentina, Australia, Canada, Japan and the U.S.A. There were also speakers from six Portuguese research institutions, and nine of the speak ers were Ph.D. students. The contributions are presented in these proceedings in chronological order. The workshop brought together string theorists, particle physicists, theoretical and observational cosmologists, relativists and observational astrophysicists. It was generally agreed that this inter-disciplinarity was the greatest strength of the work shop, since it provided people coming into this very recent topic from the various different backgrounds with an opportunity to understand each other's language and thereby gain a more solid understanding of the overall picture."

Spis treści

The cosmology of extra dimensions and varying fundamental constants.- String theory, cosmology and varying constants.- Cosmological parameters from Cosmic Microwave Background anisotropies: Status and prospects.- Cosmology in a brane-universe.- Brane world effective action at low energies.- Varying fundamental constants from a string-inspired brane world model.- Cosmology ‘without’ constants.- Variable speed of light theories.- Varying fundamental constants: A dynamical systems approach.- A resolution of the cosmological singularity in string theory.- The global structure of the colliding bubble braneworld universe.- The value of ?0 in a colliding bubble universe.- Inhomogeneous dark radiation dynamics on a de Sitter brane.- The confrontation between general relativity and experiment.- The implications of experimental uncertainties in Newton’s constant on the standard evolution of the Sun.- Varying fine-structure constant and the cosmological constant problem.- Does the fine structure constant vary? A third quasar absorption sample consistent with varying ?.- Does the fine structure constant vary? A detailed investigation into systematic effects.- Does the proton-to-electron mass ratio ? = mp/me vary in the course of cosmological evolution?.- Measuring ? in the early universe.- Constraining theoretical models with astronomical and geophysical bounds.- White dwarf constraints on exotic physics.- Possible evidence of time variation of weak interaction constant from double beta decay experiments.- Varying constants, nuclear physics and unification.- Cosmological perturbations of an expanding brane in an antide Sitter bulk: A short review.- Varying constants in brane world scenarios.- Cosmological tensor perturbations in brane world models.- Holographic view of cosmological perturbations.- Constants and variations: From alpha to omega.- A qualitative analysis of the attractor mechanism of general relativity.- Non-Abelian brane cosmology.- Chaos and brane-worlds.- Multidimensional cosmology and asymptotical AdS.- Black hole solutions in braneworlds with induced gravity.