Astrophysical constraints on large extra dimensions

In the Kaluza-Klein (KK) scenario with n large extra dimensions where gravity propagates in the 4+n dimensional bulk of spacetime while gauge and matter fields are confined to a four dimensional subspace, the light graviton KK modes can be produced in the Sun, red giants and supernovae. We study the energy-loss rates through photon-photon annihilation, electron-positron annihilation, gravi-Compton-Primakoff scattering, gravi-bremsstrahlung and nucleon-nucleon bremsstrahlung, and derive lower limits to the string scale MS. The most stringent lower limit obtained from SN1987A leads to MS>30–130 TeV (2.1–9.3 TeV) for the case of two (three) large extra dimensions.