Localised gravity and resolved braneworlds

A bstract Deriving an effective massless field theory for fluctuations about a braneworld spacetime requires analysis of the transverse-space-wavefunction’s second-order differential equation. There can be two strikingly different types of effective theory. For a supersymmetric braneworld, one involves a technically consistent embedding of a supergravity theory on the worldvolume; the other can produce, in certain situations, a genuine localisation of gravity near the worldvolume but not via a technically consistent embedding. So, in the latter situation, the theory’s dynamics remains higher-dimensional but there can still be a lower-dimensional effective-theory interpretation of the dynamics at low worldvolume momenta / large worldvolume distances. This paper examines the conditions for such a gravity localisation to be possible. Localising gravity about braneworld spacetimes requires finding solutions to transverse-space self-adjoint Sturm-Liouville problems admitting a normalisable zero mode in the noncompact transverse space. This in turn requires analysis of Sturm-Liouville problems with radial singular endpoints following a formalism originating in the work of Hermann Weyl. Examples of such gravity-localising braneworld systems are found and analysed in this formalism with underlying “skeleton” braneworlds of Salam-Sezgin, resolved D3-brane and Randall-Sundrum II types.