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SUMMARY:Vacuum Destabilisation by Dense Astrophysical Objects - Joe Conlon
  (Oxford)
DTSTART:20110117T130000Z
DTEND:20110117T140000Z
UID:TALK29127@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Tasos Avgoustidis
DESCRIPTION:We describe how dense matter environments source a contributio
 n to moduli potentials and\nanalyse the conditions required to initiate ei
 ther decompactification or a local shift in moduli\nvevs. This introduces
  the possibility that dense objects may destabilise the vacuum.  \nWe cons
 ider astrophysical objects such as neutron stars and cosmic strings as wel
 l as\ncosmological and black hole singularities.  We find that neutron sta
 rs cannot destabilise realistic\nPlanck coupled moduli\, which would requi
 re objects many orders of magnitude denser. However\ngravitational collaps
 e\, either in matter-dominated universes or in black hole formation\, inev
 itably\nleads to a destabilisation of the compact volume causing a super-i
 nflationary expansion of the\nextra dimensions.
LOCATION:CMS\, Pav.B\, CTC Common Room (B1.19)
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