Related papers: Small Steps and Giant Leaps in the Landscape
We consider free massive matter fields in static scalar, electric and gravitational backgrounds. Tuning these backgrounds to the brink of vacuum decay, we identify a term in their effective action that is singular. This singular term is…
A free-theory vacuum state of an interacting field theory, e.g. quantum gravity, is unstable at tree level in general due to spontaneous emission of Fock-space particles in any spacetime with no global timelike Killing vectors, such as de…
Using simple 6D junction conditions, we describe two surprising geometries. First in a case of transitions between dS4xS2 vacua, the S2 can be stretched significantly larger than the vacuum values both before and after the transition. Then…
The cosmological constant and the Higgs mass seem unnaturally small and anthropically selected. We show that both can be efficiently scanned in Quantum Field Theories with a large enough number of vacua controllable thanks to approximated…
In BP models with hundreds of fluxes, we compute the effects of cosmological dynamics on the probability distribution of landscape vacua. Starting from generic initial conditions, we find that most fluxes are dynamically driven into a…
We consider phase transitions and their contributions to vacuum energy in the manifestly local theory of vacuum energy sequestering. We demonstrate that the absence of instabilities imposes constraints on the couplings of gravitating and…
The observation in the universe of a small but positive vacuum energy strongly suggests, in the string landscape picture, that there will ultimately be a phase transition to an exactly supersymmetric universe. This ground state or "true…
We develop a theory of static BPS domain walls in stringy landscape and present a large family of BPS walls interpolating between different supersymmetric vacua. Examples include KKLT models, STU models, type IIB multiple flux vacua, and…
Stringy effects on vacuum transitions are shown to include surprisingly large decay rates through very high potential barriers. This simple, yet counter-intuitive result will drastically modify the measure on the landscape of string vacua.
Relativistic scalar fields are ubiquitous in modified theories of gravity. An important tool in understanding their impact on structure formation, especially in the context of N-body simulations, is the quasi-static approximation in which…
We describe how 4d de Sitter vacua might emerge from 11d heterotic M-theory. Non-perturbative effects and $G$-fluxes play a crucial role leading to vacua with F-term supersymmetry breaking and a positive energy density. Charged scalar…
We apply the covariant entropy bound argument supporting the de Sitter swampland conjecture to the quintessence model, to find out the condition for the background to be unstable. More concretely, the background is unstable when the matter…
(1+1)-dimensional locally de Sitter Friedmann-Robertson-Walker cosmologies with compact spatial sections allow cosh, sinh and exponential evolution laws, each with a freely-specifiable spatial circumference parameter, and the value of this…
We review recent work in which compactifications of string and M theory are constructed in which all scalar fields (moduli) are massive, and supersymmetry is broken with a small positive cosmological constant, features needed to reproduce…
We propose that the existence of the string landscape suggests the universe can be in a quantum glass state, where an extremely large viscosity is generated, and long distance dynamics slows down. At the same time, the short distance…
We compute the masses of all moduli in the unstable deSitter vacua arising in the toy model of cosmological M-theory flux compactifications on the G2 holonomy manifolds of [1]. The slow-roll parameters in the tachyonic directions are shown…
Self-sustained dynamical phases of living matter can exhibit remarkable similarities over a wide range of scales, from mesoscopic vortex structures in microbial suspensions and motility assays of biopolymers to turbulent large-scale…
We revisit the stability of the complex structure moduli in the large volume regime of type-IIB flux compactifications. We argue that when the volume is not exponentially large, such as in K\"ahler uplifted dS vacua, the quantum corrections…
We investigate the vacuum structure of four-dimensional effective theory arising from Type IIB flux compactifications on a mirror of the rigid Calabi-Yau threefold, corresponding to a T-dual of the DeWolfe-Giryavets-Kachru-Taylor model in…
Dimensional reduction has proven to be a surprisingly powerful tool for delineating the boundary between the string landscape and the swampland. Bounds from the Weak Gravity Conjecture and the Repulsive Force Conjecture, for instance, are…