Related papers: On Axionic Field Ranges, Loopholes and the Weak Gr…
Models of large-field inflation based on axion-like fields with shift symmetries can be simple and natural, and make a promising prediction of detectable primordial gravitational waves. The Weak Gravity Conjecture is known to constrain the…
Cosmic Inflation provides an attractive framework for understanding the early universe and the cosmic microwave background. It can readily involve energies close to the scale at which Quantum Gravity effects become important. General…
We consider the gravitational correction to the coupling of the scalar fields. Weak gravity conjecture says that the gravitational correction to the running of scalar coupling should be less than the contribution from scalar fields. For…
In this note we show that models of natural inflation based on closed string axions are incompatible with the weak gravity conjecture (WGC). Specifically, we use T-duality in order to map the bounds on the charge-to-mass ratio of particles…
The electric Weak Gravity Conjecture demands that axions with large decay constant $f$ couple to light instantons. The resulting large instantonic corrections pose problems for natural inflation. We explore an alternative argument based on…
The Weak Gravity Conjecture, if valid, rules out simple models of Natural Inflation by restricting their axion decay constant to be sub-Planckian. We revisit stringy attempts to realise Natural Inflation, with a single open string axionic…
The weak gravity conjecture imposes severe constraints on natural inflation. A trans-Planckian axion decay constant can only be realized if the potential exhibits an additional (subdominant) modulation with sub-Planckian periodicity. The…
We develop methods for resummation of instanton lattice series. Using these tools, we investigate the consequences of the Weak Gravity Conjecture for large-field axion inflation. We find that the Sublattice Weak Gravity Conjecture implies a…
In this note, we discuss the implications of the weak gravity conjecture (WGC) for general models of large-field inflation with a large number of axions $N$. We first show that, from the bottom-up perspective, such models admit a variety of…
Axions with broken discrete shift symmetry (axion monodromy) have recently played a central role both in the discussion of inflation and the `relaxion' approach to the hierarchy problem. We suggest a very minimalist way to constrain such…
The weak gravity conjecture applied for the aligned natural inflation indicates that generically there can be a modulation of the inflaton potential, with a period determined by sub-Planckian axion scale. We study the oscillations in the…
Common features of known quantum gravity theories may hint at the general nature of quantum gravity. The absence of continuous global symmetries is one such feature. This inspired the Weak Gravity Conjecture, which bounds masses of charged…
The probability of there being sufficient inflation to solve the fine-tuning associated with the horizon and flatness problems has recently been shown to be exponentially small, within the context of classical general relativity. Here this…
We derive constraints facing models of axion inflation based on decay constant alignment from a string-theoretic and quantum gravitational perspective. In particular, we investigate the prospects for alignment and `anti-alignment' of $C_4$…
We study the Weak Gravity Conjecture in the presence of scalar fields. The Weak Gravity Conjecture is a consistency condition for a theory of quantum gravity asserting that for a U(1) gauge field, there is a particle charged under this…
Axions play a central role in inflationary model building and other cosmological applications. This is mainly due to their flat potential, which is protected by a global shift symmetry. However, quantum gravity is known to break global…
We discuss some model-independent implications of embedding (aligned) axionic inflation in string theory. As a consequence of string theoretic duality symmetries the pure cosine potentials of natural inflation are replaced by modular…
In loop quantum gravity, modifications to the geometrical density cause a self-interacting scalar field to accelerate away from a minimum of its potential. In principle, this mechanism can generate the conditions that subsequently lead to…
The axionic weak gravity conjecture predicts the existence of instantons whose actions are less than their charges in appropriate units. We show that the conjecture is satisfied for the axion-dilaton-gravity system if we assume duality…
The Weak Gravity Conjecture (WGC) is a proposed constraint on theories with gauge fields and gravity, requiring the existence of light charged particles and/or imposing an upper bound on the field theory cutoff $\Lambda$. If taken as a…