String excitation by initial singularity of inflation

We discuss excitation of string oscillation modes by an initial singularity of inflation. The initial singularity of inflation is known to occur with a finite Hubble parameter, which is generally lower than the string scale, and hence it is not clear that stringy effects become significant around it. With the help of Penrose limit, we find that infinitely heavy oscillation modes get excited when a singularity is strong in the sense of Krolak’s classification. We demonstrate that the initial singularities of Starobinsky and hill top inflation, assuming the slow roll inflation to the past infinity, are strong. Hence stringy corrections are inevitable in the very early stage of these inflation models. We also find that the initial singularity of the hill top inflation could be weak for non-slow roll case.

A Penrose limit for type IIB AdS6 solutions

In this paper a Penrose limit is constructed for type IIB AdS6× S2× Σ supergravity solutions. These solutions are dual to five dimensional SCFTs related to (p,q) five brane webs, which can often be described in terms of long quiver gauge theories. The null geodesic from which the Penrose limit is constructed is localized at a unique point on the two dimensional Riemann surface Σ, where the AdS6 and S2 metric factors are extremal. The resulting pp-wave spacetime takes a universal form. The world sheet action of the Green-Schwarz string is quadratic in the light cone gauge and the spectrum of string excitations is obtained.

THE UNBEARABLE BEINGNESS OF LIGHT — Dressingand Undressing Photonsin Black Hole Spacetimes

Gravitational tidal forces acting on the virtual e+e- cloud surrounding a photon endow spacetime with a nontrivial refractive index. This has remarkable properties unique to gravitational theories including superluminal low-frequency propagation, in apparent violation of causality, and amplification of the renormalized photon field, in apparent violation of unitarity. Using the geometry of null congruences and the Penrose limit, we illustrate these phenomena and their resolution by tracing the history of a photon as it falls into the near-singularity region of a black hole.