On cosmology in nonlinear multidimensional gravity with multiple factor spaces

Abstract

Within the scope of multidimensional Kaluza--Klein gravity with nonlinear curvature terms and two spherical extra spaces of dimensions $m$ and $n$, we study the properties of an effective action for the scale factors of the extra dimensions. Dimensional reduction leads to an effective 4D multiscalar-tensor theory. Based on qualitative estimates of the Casimir energy contribution on a physically reasonable length scale, we demonstrate the existence of such sets of initial parameters of the theory in the case $m=n$ that provide a minimum of the effective potential that yield a fine-tuned value of the effective 4D cosmological constant. The corresponding size of extra dimensions depends of which conformal frame is interpreted as the observational one: it is about three orders of magnitude larger than the standard Planck length if we adhere to the Einstein frame, but it is $n$-dependent in the Jordan frame, and its invisibility requirement restricts the total dimension to values $D = 4+2n \leq 20$.