We study a quotient Conformal Field Theory, which describes a 3 + 1 dimensional cosmological spacetime. Part of this spacetime is the Nappi-Witten (NW) universe, which starts at a “big bang” singularity, expands and then contracts to a “big crunch” singularity at a finite time. The gauged WZW model contains a number of copies of the NW spacetime, with each copy connected to the preceeding one a...

An accurate optimal design of laminated composite structures may present considerable difficulties due to the complexity and multi-modality of the functional design space. The Big Bang – Big Crunch (BB-BC) optimization method is a relatively new technique and has already proved to be a valuable tool for structural optimization. In the present study the exceptional efficiency of the method is de...

We consider spacetimes N satisfying some structural conditions, which are still fairly general, and prove convergence results for the leaves of an inverse mean curvature flow. Moreover, we define a new spacetime N̂ by switching the light cone and using reflection to define a new time function, such that the two spacetimes N and N̂ can be pasted together to yield a smooth manifold having a metric ...

The null-brane space-time provides a simple model of a big crunch/big bang singularity. A non-perturbative definition of M-theory on this space-time was recently provided using matrix theory. We derive the fermion couplings for this matrix model and study the leading quantum effects. These effects include particle production and a time-dependent potential. Our results suggest that as the null-b...