We present a mechanism for exit from inflation and reheating using the AdS/CFT correspondence. A cosmological evolution is induced on a probe D3-brane as it moves in a black D-brane background of type-0 string theory. If the tachyon field is non zero, inflation is induced on the brane-universe, with the equation of state parameter in the range −1 < w < −1/3 depending on the position of the prob...

There are a number of important thought experiments that involve raising and lowering boxes full of radiation in the vicinity of black hole horizons. This Letter looks at the limitations placed on these thought experiments by the null energy condition, which imposes a fundamental bound on the tensile-strength-to-weight ratio of the materials involved, makes it impossible to build a box near the...

In this paper we define the radiation field for the wave equation on the Schwarzschild black hole spacetime. In this context it has two components: the rescaled restriction of the time derivative of a solution to null infinity and to the event horizon. In the process, we establish some regularity properties of solutions of the wave equation on the spacetime. In particular, we prove that the reg...

We propose that the existence of the string landscape suggests the universe can be in a quantum glass state, where an extremely large viscosity is generated, and long distance dynamics slows down. At the same time, the short distance dynamics is not altered due to the separation of time scales. This scenario can help to understand some controversies in cosmology, for example the natural existen...

In a sequential Bayesian ranking and selection problem with independent normal populations and common known variance, we study a previously introduced measurement policy which we refer to as the knowledge-gradient policy. This policy myopically maximizes the expected increment in the value of information in each time period, where the value is measured according to the terminal utility function...

By employing the general expression of temperature Th = |κ|/2π = 1 2πr̃A (1 − ̇̃ rA 2Hr̃A ) associated with the apparent horizon of a FRW universe and assuming a region of FRW universe enclosed by the apparent horizon as a thermal system in equilibrium, we are able to show that the generalized second law of thermodynamics holds in Gauss-Bonnet gravity and in more general Lovelock gravity. PACS num...