Accelerating Cosmologies from Compactification

Abstract

A solution of the (4+n)-dimensional vacuum Einstein equations is found for which spacetime is compactified on an n-dimensional compact hyperbolic manifold (n> or =2) of time-varying volume to a flat four-dimensional Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker cosmology undergoing a period of accelerated expansion in the Einstein conformal frame. This shows that the "no-go" theorem forbidding acceleration in "standard" (time-independent) compactifications of string or M theory does not apply to "cosmological" (time-dependent) hyperbolic compactifications.