Effective Actions for Heterotic M-Theory

Abstract

We discuss the moduli space approximation for heterotic M-theory, both for the minimal case of two boundary branes only, and when a bulk brane is included. The resulting effective actions may be used to describe the cosmological dynamics in the regime where the branes are moving slowly, away from singularities. We make use of the recently derived colliding branes solution to determine the global structure of moduli space, finding a boundary at which the trajectories undergo a hard wall reflection. This has important consequences for the allowed moduli space trajectories, and for the behaviour of cosmological perturbations in the model.