"Standard model with compactified spatial dimensions"

---

ABSTRACT:

I will discuss the vacuum structure of the standard model coupled to gravity with two spatial dimensions compactified on a two-torus or a two-sphere, as well as the case of all spatial dimensions compactified on a three-torus. I will show that for the two-dimensional compactification on a torus there exists a new standard model vacuum stabilized by Casimir energies of standard model particles for a large range of experimentally allowed neutrino masses. I will also describe how finite temperature effects modify this picture and discuss the possibility of transitions between the four-dimensional universe and the compactified spacetimes.