GRAVITATIONAL EFFECTS IN SUPERSYMMETRIC DOMAIN-WALL BACKGROUNDS

A recent study of supersymmetric domain walls in N=1 supergravity theories revealed a new class of domain walls interpolating between supersymmetric vacua with different non-positive cosmological constants. We classify three classes of domain wall configurations and study the geodesic structure of the induced space-time. Motion of massive test particles in such space-times shows that these walls are always repulsive from the anti-de Sitter (AdS) side, while on the Minkowski side test particles feel no force. Freely falling particles far away from a wall in an AdS vacuum have a hyperbolic world line which is the same as a Rindler particle in a Minkowski background. In addition, a new coordinate system for discussing AdS space-time is presented which eliminates the use of a periodic time-like coordinate.