White dwarf cooling and large extra dimensions

Abstract

Theories of fundamental interactions with large extra dimensions have recently become very popular. Astrophysical bounds from the Sun, red-giants and SN1987a have already been derived by other authors for the theory proposed by Arkani-Hamed, Dimopoulos and Dvali. In this paper we consider G117-B15A pulsating white dwarf (ZZ Ceti star) for which the secular rate at which the period of its fundamental mode increases has been accurately measured and claimed that this mode of G117-B15A is perhaps the most stable oscillation ever recorded in the optical band. Because an additional channel of energy loss (Kaluza-Klein gravitons) would speed up the cooling rate, one is able to use the aforementioned stability to derive a bound on theories with large extra dimensions. Within the framework of the theory with large extra dimensions proposed by Arkani-Hamed, Dimopoulos and Dvali we find the lower bound on string comapctification scale which is more stringent than solar or red-giant bounds.