Cosmic acceleration in brane cosmology

Cosmic acceleration may be the result of unknown physical processes involving either new fields in high energy physics or modifications of gravitation theory. In the latter case, such modifications are usually related to the existence of extra dimensions (which is also required by unification theories), giving rise to the so-called brane cosmology. In this paper we investigate the phenomenon of the acceleration of the Universe in a particular class of brane scenarios in which a large scale modification of gravity arises due to a gravitational leakage into extra dimensions. By using the most recent supernova observations we study the transition (deceleration/acceleration) epoch as well as the constraints imposed on the parameters characterizing the model. We show that these models provide a good description for the current supernova data, which may be indicating that the existence of extra dimensions play an important role not only in fundamental physics but also in cosmology.