Warped geometry of brane worlds

We study the dynamical equations for extra-dimensional dependence of a warp factor and a bulk scalar in 5D brane world scenarios with induced brane metric of constant curvature. These equations are similar to those for the time dependence of the scale factor and a scalar field in 4D cosmology, but with the sign of the scalar field potential reversed. Based on this analogy, we introduce novel methods for studying the warped geometry. We construct the full phase portraits of the warp factor/scalar system for several examples of the bulk potential. This allows us to view the global properties of the warped geometry. For flat branes, the phase portrait is two dimensional. Moving along typical phase trajectories, the warp factor is initially increasing and finally decreasing. All trajectories have timelike gradient-dominated singularities at one or both of their ends, which are reachable in a finite distance and must be screened by the branes. For curved branes, the phase portrait is three dimensional. However, as the warp factor increases the phase trajectories tend towards the two-dimensional surface corresponding to flat branes. We discuss this property as a mechanism that may stretch the curved brane to be almost flat, with a small cosmological constant. Finally, we describe the embedding of branes in the 5D bulk using the phase space geometric methods developed here. In this language the boundary conditions at the branes can be described as a 1D curve in the phase space. We discuss the naturalness of tuning the brane potential to stabilize the brane world system.