English

Implications of Weak Gravity Conjecture for de Sitter Decay by Flux Discharge

High Energy Physics - Theory 2023-11-06 v3 Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology High Energy Physics - Phenomenology

Abstract

We examine implications of the weak gravity conjecture for the mechanisms for discharging cosmological constant via membrane nucleations. Once screening fluxes and membranes which source them enter, and weak gravity bounds are enforced, a generic de Sitter space \underline{must} be unstable. We show that when all the flux terms which screen and discharge the cosmological constant are dominated by quadratic and higher order terms, the bounds from weak gravity conjecture and naturalness lead toward anthropic outcomes. In contrast, when the flux sectors are dominated by linear flux terms, anthropics may be avoided, and the cosmological constant may naturally decay toward smallest possible values.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2309.07223,
  title  = {Implications of Weak Gravity Conjecture for de Sitter Decay by Flux Discharge},
  author = {Nemanja Kaloper and Alexander Westphal},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2309.07223},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

26 pages, 4 .png figures, XeLaTeX; v3: additional improvements and discussion, few more typos fixed