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Updated: Sep 5, 2025

Setting Limits on Supersymmetry Using Simplified Models
Published on: November 15, 2013
Aether, dark energy and string compactifications
1Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, Centre for Mathematical Sciences, University of Cambridge, Wilberforce Road, Cambridge CB3 0WA, UK.
Abstract:
The nineteenth-century aether died with special relativity but was resurrected by general relativity in the form of dark energy; a tensile material with tension equal to its energy density. Such a material is provided by the D-branes of string-theory; these can support the fields of supersymmetric particle-physics, although their energy density is cancelled by orientifold singularities upon compactification. Dark energy can still arise from supersymmetry-breaking anti-D-branes but it is probably time-dependent. Recent results on time-dependent compactifications to an FLRW universe with late-time accelerated expansion are reviewed. This article is part of the theme issue 'The future of mathematical cosmology, Volume 2'.
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