Ulrich Guenther, A. A. Starobinsky, Alexandre Zhuk

• We investigate four-dimensional effective theories which are obtained by dimensional reduction of multidimensional cosmological models with factorizable geometry and we consider the interaction between conformal excitations of the internal space (geometrical moduli excitations) and Abelian gauge fields. It is assumed that the internal space background can be stabilized by minima of an effective potential. The conformal excitations over such a background have the form of massive scalar fields (gravitational excitons) propagating in the external spacetime. We discuss cosmological and astrophysical implications of the interaction between gravexcitons and four-dimensional photons as well as constraints arising on multidimensional models of the type considered in our paper. In particular, we show that due to the experimental bounds on the variation of the fine-structure constant, gravexcitons should decay before nucleosynthesis starts. For a successful nucleosynthesis, the masses of the decaying gravexcitons should be mgreater than orWe investigate four-dimensional effective theories which are obtained by dimensional reduction of multidimensional cosmological models with factorizable geometry and we consider the interaction between conformal excitations of the internal space (geometrical moduli excitations) and Abelian gauge fields. It is assumed that the internal space background can be stabilized by minima of an effective potential. The conformal excitations over such a background have the form of massive scalar fields (gravitational excitons) propagating in the external spacetime. We discuss cosmological and astrophysical implications of the interaction between gravexcitons and four-dimensional photons as well as constraints arising on multidimensional models of the type considered in our paper. In particular, we show that due to the experimental bounds on the variation of the fine-structure constant, gravexcitons should decay before nucleosynthesis starts. For a successful nucleosynthesis, the masses of the decaying gravexcitons should be mgreater than or similar to10(4) GeV. Furthermore, we discuss the possible contribution of gravexcitons to ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays. It is shown that, at energies Esimilar to10(20) eV, the decay length of gravexcitons with masses mgreater than or similar to10(4) GeV is very small, but that for mless than or similar to10(2) GeV it becomes much larger than the Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin cutoff distance. Finally, we investigate the possibility for gravexciton-photon oscillations in strong magnetic fields of astrophysical objects. The corresponding estimates indicate that even the high-magnetic- field strengths B of magnetars (special types of pulsars with B>B(critical)similar to4.4x10(13) G) are not sufficient for an efficient and copious production of gravexcitons…