Cosmological creation of D-branes and anti-D-branes

We argue that the early universe may be described by an initial state of space-filling branes and anti-branes. At high temperature this system is stable. At low temperature tachyons appear and lead to a phase transition, dynamics, and the creation of D-branes. These branes are cosmologically produced in a generic fashion by the Kibble mechanism. From an entropic point of view, the formation of lower-dimensional branes is preferred and D3-brane-worlds are exponentially more likely to form than higher-dimensional branes. Virtually any brane configuration can be created from such phase transitions by adjusting the tachyon profile. A lower bound on the number defects produced is: one D-brane per Hubble volume. (author)