Living on the edge: cosmology on the boundary of anti-de Sitter space

We sketch a particularly simple and compelling version of D-brane cosmology. Inspired by the semi-phenomenological Randall-Sundrum models, and their cosmological generalizations, we develop a variant that contains a single (3 + I)dimensional D-brane which is located on the boundary of a single bulk (4 + I)-dimensional region. The D-brane boundary is itself to be interpreted as our visible universe, with ordinary matter (planets, stars, galaxies) being trapped on this D-brane by string theory effects. The (4 + 1)-dimensional bulk is, in its simplest implementation, adS(4+1) anti-de Sitter space. We demonstrate that a k = + 1 closed FLRW universe is the most natural option, though the scale factor could quite easily be so large as to make it operationally indistinguishable from a k = 0 spatially flat universe. (With minor loss of elegance, spatially flat and hyperbolic FLRW cosmologies can also be accommodated.) We demonstrate how this model can be made consistent with standard cosmology, and suggest some possible observational tests. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.