Regularization of the linearized gravitational self-force for branes

Phys Rev Lett. 2004 May 21;92(20):201305. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.92.201305. Epub 2004 May 21.

Abstract

We discuss the linearized, gravitational self-interaction of a brane of arbitrary codimension in a spacetime of arbitrary dimension. We find that in the codimension two case the gravitational self-force is exactly zero for a Nambu-Goto equation of state, generalizing a previous result for a string in four dimensions. For the case of a 3-brane, this picks out the case of a six-dimensional brane-world model as having special properties that we discuss. In particular, we see that bare tension on the brane has no effect locally, suppressing the cosmological constant problem.