DBI Tunneling and the Landscape

Saswat Sarangi

Univ. of Columbia

Abstract

We will investigate the problem of the decay of false vacuum when the field theory kinetic term is DBI type. The DBI effect is very pronounced for stringy potential barriers and leads to an enhancement of tunneling rates for such high barriers. We shall also briefly explore DBI solitons that can form on D-branes and see departures from usual field theory defects for stringy regimes. Cosmological applications will be discussed.