Related papers: Theoretical Limits on Agegraphic Quintessence from…
The Weak Gravity Conjecture (WGC) bounds the mass of a particle by its charge. It is expected that this bound can not be below the ultraviolet cut-off scale of the effective theory. Recently, an extension of the WGC was proposed in the…
The weak gravity conjecture and the shear viscosity to entropy density bound place constraints on low energy effective field theories that may help to distinguish which theories can be UV completed. Recently, there have been suggestions of…
We study scenarios where a scalar field has a spatially varying vacuum expectation value such that the total field variation is super-Planckian. We focus on the case where the scalar field controls the coupling of a U(1) gauge field, which…
We propose a new version of the scalar Weak Gravity Conjecture (WGC) which would apply to any scalar field coupled to quantum gravity. For a single scalar it is given by the differential constraint $V''\leq…
In this paper we study the observational constraints that can be imposed on the coupling parameter, $\hat \alpha$, of the regularized version of the 4-dimensional Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet theory of gravity. We use the scalar-tensor field…
The recent GW170817 measurement favors the simplest dark energy models, such as a single scalar field. Quintessence models can be classified in two classes, freezing and thawing, depending on whether the equation of state decreases towards…
We investigate the cosmological observational test of the extended quintessence model, i.e. a scalar-tensor gravity model with a scalar field potential serving as dark energy, by using the Planck 2018 cosmic microwave background (CMB) data,…
We propose a general model where quintessence couples to electromagnetism via its kinetic term. This novelty generalizes the linear dependence of the gauge kinetic function on $\phi$, commonly adopted in the literature. The interaction…
We analyse the implications of the Planck data for cosmic inflation. The Planck nominal mission temperature anisotropy measurements, combined with the WMAP large-angle polarization, constrain the scalar spectral index to $n_s = 0.9603 \pm…
We explore the prospects for bounding the weak scale using the weak gravity conjecture (WGC), addressing the hierarchy problem by violating the expectations of effective field theory. Building on earlier work by Cheung and Remmen, we…
We investigate several phenomenological implications of the Weak Gravity Conjecture (WGC). We find that the WGC implies that the SM neutrinos must be electrically neutral, that the electric charge in the SM must be quantized, and that the…
In this article we confront a class of $f(Q)$ gravity models with observational data of galaxy-galaxy lensing. Specifically, we consider the $f(Q)$ gravity models containing a small quadratic correction when compared with General Relativity…
The speed of gravitational waves provides us a new tool to test alternative theories of gravity. The constraint on the speed of gravitational waves from GW170817 and GRB170817A is used to test some classes of Horndeski theory. In…
Quintessence models have been widely examined in the context of scalar-Gauss-Bonnet gravity, a subclass of Horndeski's theory, and were proposed as viable candidates for Dark Energy. However, the relatively recent observational constraints…
We update and extend our previous work reconstructing the potential of a quintessence field from current observational data. We extend the cosmological dataset to include new supernova data, plus information from the cosmic microwave…
We revisit constraints on the (pseudo)conformal Universe from the non-observation of statistical anisotropy in the Planck data. The quadratic maximal likelihood estimator is applied to the Planck temperature maps at frequencies 143 GHz and…
In this work we update the bounds on $\sum m_{\nu}$ from latest publicly available cosmological data and likelihoods using Bayesian analysis, while explicitly considering particular neutrino mass hierarchies. In the minimal…
We revisit the Scalar Weak Gravity Conjecture and investigate the possibility to impose that scalar interactions dominate over gravitational ones. More precisely, we look for consequences of assuming that, for leading scalar interactions,…
Quantum-gravity effects are expected to be suppressed by the Planck mass. For experimental progress it is therefore important to identify potential signatures from Planck-scale physics that are amenable to ultrahigh-precision tests. It is…
Any variation of the fundamental physical constants, and more particularly of the fine structure constant, $\alpha$, or of the mass of the electron, $m_e$, would affect the recombination history of the Universe and cause an imprint on the…