2001/05/31 by Eduardo Ponton, Eduardo Pontón, Erich Poppitz · 8 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Noncommutative and Quantum Gravity Theories #Quantum Electrodynamics and Casimir Effect #hep-ph #hep-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/1126-6708/2001/06/019
published as JHEP 0106:019,2001 · 36 pages, discussion on stabilization of the torus modular parameter added
openalex publication_date 2001/06/08 · arxiv created 2001/06/14 · arxiv updated 2010/05/28 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
We compute the one-loop Casimir energy of gravity and matter fields, obeying various boundary conditions, in 5-dimensional S1/Z2 and 6-dimensional T2/Zk orbifolds. We discuss the role of the Casimir energy in possible radius stabilization mechanisms and show that the presence of massive as well as massless fields can lead to minima with zero cosmological constant. In the 5-d orbifold, we also consider the case where kinetic terms localized at the fixed points are not small. We take into account their contribution to the Casimir energy and show that localized kinetic terms can also provide a mechanism for radius stabilization. We apply our results to a recently proposed 5-dimensional supersymmetric model of electroweak symmetry breaking and show that the Casimir energy with the minimal matter content is repulsive. Stabilizing the radius with zero cosmological constant requires, in this context, adding positive bulk cosmological constant and negative brane-tension counterterms.