Space-like branes, accelerating cosmologies and the near `horizon' limit

Abstract

It is known that there exist two different classes of time dependent solutions in the form of space-like (or S)-branes in the low energy M/string theory. Accelerating cosmologies are known to arise from S-branes in one class, but not in the other where the time-like holography in the dS/CFT type correspondence may be more transparent. We show how the accelerating cosmologies arise from S-branes in the other class. Although we do not get the de Sitter structure in the lowest order supergravity, the near `horizon' ($t\to 0$) limits of these S-branes are the generalized Kasner metric.