Aspects of time-dependent solutions of string theory
Michal Fabinger · CERN Document Server (European Organization for Nuclear Research) · 2003
Most of our present knowledge of string theory pertains to time-independent backgrounds. Time-dependent backgrounds are in general much harder to understand, and pose a number of interesting questions. In the first part of this dissertation, we study light- like singularities in string theory. We discuss physical properties of the parabolic orbifold and the null-brane orbifold of Minkowski space, and we show how a large class of light-like singularities gets repaired by string worldsheet instantons. The second part of the dissertation is devoted to the study of physical systems related to double analytic continuations of black holes. In particular, we discuss M-theory compactified on a non-supersymmetric interval, which can decay by nucleation of bubbles of nothing. We also study the evolution of spacetimes obtained by a double analytic continuation of Kerr black holes. We compute particle creation in these spacetimes, and explain its relation to non-local deformations of the string worldsheet action. The main motivation for the work presented in the last part of the dissertation is to gain information about a possible holographic description of de Sitter space. We study the entropy of de Sitter flux compactifications, and the entropy of their deformations containing D-brane domain walls. We find a string scale correspondence point at which the thermodynamic entropy of the spacetime and the statistical entropy on the D-brane domain walls agree up to coefficients of order one.