Formation and evolution of a 2-brane structure in multidimensional f(R) gravity

Abstract

It has been previously shown that multidimensional f(R) gravity can lead to a two-brane structure. In this paper, we analyze such a model with a spatially flat 4D de Sitter (dS) cosmology whose Hubble parameter H determines the universal energy scale. We show that the two-brane metric is nucleated at the highest energies. The distance between the branes grows gradually as the energy decreases, tending to a finite value at zero energy density. It is stated that the physical parameters such as the 4D Planck mass, the Higgs vacuum expectation value, and vacuum energy density vary with the evolving universal energy scale, even on the classical level. We also show that the Higgs vacuum expectation value is different on different branes.