Extra-dimensional cosmology with domain-wall branes

Abstract

We show how to define a consistent braneworld cosmology in a model in which the brane is constructed as a field-theoretic domain wall of finite thickness. The Friedmann, Robertson-Walker metric is recovered in the region of the brane, but, remarkably, with scale factor that depends on particle energy and on particle species, constituting a breakdown of the weak equivalence principle on sufficiently small scales. This unusual effect comes from the extended nature of particles confined to a domain-wall brane, and the fact that they feel an ''average'' of the bulk spacetime. We demonstrate how to recover the standard results of brane cosmology in the infinitely-thin brane limit, and comment on how our results have the potential to place bounds on parameters such as the thickness of domain-wall braneworlds. © 2009 SISSA.