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Related papers: Axion Monodromy and the Weak Gravity Conjecture

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We discuss quantum gravitational effects in Einstein theory coupled to periodic axion scalars to analyze the viability of several proposals to achieve superplanckian axion periods (aka decay constants) and their possible application to…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2015-09-30 Miguel Montero , Angel M. Uranga , Irene Valenzuela

The Weak Gravity Conjecture is a nontrivial conjecture about quantum gravity that makes sharp, falsifiable predictions which can be checked in a broad range of string theory examples. However, in the presence of massless scalar fields…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2020-11-02 Ben Heidenreich , Matthew Reece , Tom Rudelius

We examine the relaxion mechanism in string theory. An essential feature is that an axion winds over $N \gg 1$ fundamental periods. In string theory realizations via axion monodromy, this winding number corresponds to a physical charge…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2016-10-19 Liam McAllister , Pedro Schwaller , Geraldine Servant , John Stout , Alexander Westphal

I review the ideas leading to the QCD axion and also comment on the Jarlskog determinant describing the observed weak CP violation, and the axion-related Kim-Nilles-Peloso inflation. All of these use pseudoscalars, and the underlying…

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology · Physics 2015-08-19 Jihn E. Kim

We provide a compact review on recent developments on axion $F(R)$ gravity. The axion field is a string theory originating theoretical particle that is a perfect candidate for low-mass particle dark matter. In this review we present how a…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2020-04-22 S. D. Odintsov , V. K. Oikonomou

We show that the recently proposed weak gravity conjecture\cite{AMNV0601} can be extended to a class of scalar field theories. Taking gravity into account, we find an upper bound on the gravity interaction strength, expressed in terms of…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2010-02-03 Miao Li , Wei Song , Yushu Song , Tower Wang

The weak gravity conjecture has been proposed as a criterion to distinguish the landscape from the swampland in string theory. As an application in cosmology of this conjecture, we use it to impose theoretical constraint on parameters of…

Astrophysics · Physics 2008-11-26 Xing Wu , Zong-Hong Zhu

We investigate the cosmology of an axion that is fundamentally non-compact. During inflation, fluctuations of the effectively massless field populate many QCD vacua, thereby evading conventional isocurvature constraints while generating…

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology · Physics 2025-12-24 Georgios K. Karananas , Mikhail Shaposhnikov , Sebastian Zell

It is widely believed and in part established that exact global symmetries are inconsistent with quantum gravity. One then expects that approximate global symmetries can be quantitatively constrained by quantum gravity or swampland…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2020-09-22 Tristan Daus , Arthur Hebecker , Sascha Leonhardt , John March-Russell

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,…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2021-02-03 Karim Benakli , Carlo Branchina , Gaëtan Lafforgue-Marmet

In this note we give a summary of [arXiv:2401.14449] in which we proposed a proof of the weak gravity conjecture in perturbative string theory. While the WGC is well established, checked in many examples, and many of the ingredients we use…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2026-05-06 Matteo Lotito

We propose a scenario with string theory in the deep ultraviolet, an intermediate asymptotically safe scaling regime for gravity and matter, and the Standard Model in the infrared. This could provide a new perspective to tackle challenges…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2019-11-18 Senarath de Alwis , Astrid Eichhorn , Aaron Held , Jan M. Pawlowski , Marc Schiffer , Fleur Versteegen

We present a complete proof of the Weak Gravity Conjecture in any perturbative bosonic string theory in spacetime dimension $D\ge6$. Our proof works by relating the black hole extremality bound to long range forces, which are more easily…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2025-06-13 Ben Heidenreich , Matteo Lotito

We revisit the domain wall problem for QCD axion models with more than one quark charged under the Peccei-Quinn symmetry. Symmetry breaking during or after inflation results in the formation of a domain wall network which would cause cosmic…

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology · Physics 2023-07-11 Konstantin A. Beyer , Subir Sarkar

The black hole weak gravity conjecture (WGC) is a set of linear inequalities on the four-derivative corrections to Einstein--Maxwell theory. Remarkably, in four dimensions, these combinations appear in the $2 \to 2$ photon amplitudes,…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2022-09-07 Johan Henriksson , Brian McPeak , Francesco Russo , Alessandro Vichi

It has been recently speculated that global symmetries are broken by gravity. We propose a scenario for the generation of the baryon asymmetry in the early Universe in which the domain walls predicted by theories with discrete symmetries…

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology · Physics 2009-10-22 H. Lew , A. Riotto

We propose a generalized formulation of the Scalar Weak Gravity Conjecture (SWGC) based on the analogy with the derivation of the Gauge Weak Gravity Conjecture (GWGC). We discuss some phenomenological implications of this Generalized SWGC,…

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology · Physics 2024-06-14 Fayez Abu-Ajamieh , Nobuchika Okada , Sudhir K. Vempati

We propose quantum gravitational constraints on effective four-dimensional theories with N=1 supersymmetry. These Swampland constraints arise by demanding consistency of the worldsheet theory of a class of axionic, or EFT, strings whose…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2023-05-02 Luca Martucci , Nicolo Risso , Timo Weigand

Weak gravity conjecture can be formulated as a statement that gravity must be the weakest force, compared to the other interactions in low energy effective field theory (EFT). Several arguments in favor of this statement were presented from…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2025-07-25 Anna Tokareva , Yongjun Xu

The recent BICEP2 result shows that the Universe once has gone through the vacuum with the GUT scale energy density. The implied high scale inflation nullifies the dilution idea of topological defects, strings and domain walls, of the…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2014-09-05 Jihn E. Kim