Inhomogeneous Fragmentation of the Rolling Tachyon

Authors

Gary Felder, Smith CollegeFollow
Lev Kofman, University of Toronto

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

8-24-2004

Publication Title

Physical Review D

Abstract

Dirac-Born-Infeld type effective actions reproduce many aspects of string theory classical tachyon dynamics of unstable Dp-branes. The inhomogeneous tachyon field rolling from the top of its potential forms topological defects of lower codimensions. In between them, as we show, the tachyon energy density fragments into a p-dimensional web-like high density network evolving with time. We present an analytic asymptotic series solution of the non-linear equations for the inhomogeneous tachyon and its stress energy. The generic solution for a tachyon field with a runaway potential in arbitrary dimensions is described by the free streaming of noninteracting massive particles whose initial velocities are defined by the gradients of the initial tachyon profile. Thus, relativistic particle mechanics is a dual picture of the tachyon field effective action. Implications of this picture for inflationary models with a decaying tachyon field are discussed.

Volume

70

Issue

046004

First Page

046004-1

Last Page

046004-4

DOI

DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.70.046004

ISSN

ISSN 2470-0029

Comments

Archived as published.

Recommended Citation

Felder, Gary and Kofman, Lev, "Inhomogeneous Fragmentation of the Rolling Tachyon" (2004). Physics: Faculty Publications, Smith College, Northampton, MA.
https://scholarworks.smith.edu/phy_facpubs/13