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Inflationary potentials are investigated for specific models in type IIB string theory via flux compactification. As concrete models, we investigate several cases where the internal spaces are weighted projective spaces. The models we…
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…
We investigate whether cosmological inflation is possible in a class of flux compactifications of type IIA strings on rigid Calabi-Yau manifolds, when all perturbative string corrections are taken into account. We confine ourselves to the…
We continue the analysis of the geometry of generic Minkowski $\mathcal{N} = 1$, $D = 4$ flux compactifications in M-theory using exceptional generalised geometry, including the calculation of the infinitesimal moduli spaces. The…
We study models of modular inflation of the form expected to arise from low energy effective actions of superstring theories. We argue on general grounds that the most likely models of modular slow-roll inflation are small field models in…
The BICEP2 observations, if confirmed, point to a high scale of inflation and large field excursions during the inflationary era. Non-compact string moduli spaces are a suggestive setting for these phenomena. While unlikely to be described…
We propose a simple but effective mechanism to realize an inflationary early universe consistent with the observed WMAP, Planck and/or BICEP2 data, which would be incorporated in various supersymmetric models of elementary particles…
The recently proposed relaxion models require extremely large trans-Planckian axion excursions as well as a potential explicitly violating the axion shift symmetry. The latter property is however inconsistent with the axion periodicity,…
We study the general multi-axion systems, focusing on the possibility of large field inflation driven by axions. We find that through axion mixing from a non-diagonal metric on the moduli space and/or from St\"uckelberg coupling to a U(1)…
We study warped compactifications to three dimensions, realized as an orientifold of type IIA string theory on T^7. By turning on 3- and 4-form fluxes on the torus in a supersymmetric way, we generate a potential for the moduli fields. We…
We study novel type IIB compactifications on the T^6/Z_2 orientifold. This geometry arises in the T-dual description of Type I theory on T^6, and one normally introduces 16 space-filling D3-branes to cancel the RR tadpoles. Here, we cancel…
Moduli stabilisation in superstring compactifications on Calabi-Yau orientifolds remains a key challenge in the search for realistic string vacua. In particular, odd moduli arising from the reduction of 2-forms $(B_2,C_2)$ in type IIB are…
We derive the most general flux-induced superpotential for N=1 M-theory compactifications on seven-dimensional manifolds with SU(3) structure. Imposing the appropriate boundary conditions, this result applies for heterotic M-theory. It is…
We study closed-string moduli stabilization in Higgs-otic inflation in Type IIB orientifold backgrounds with fluxes. In this setup large-field inflation is driven by the vacuum energy of mobile D7-branes. Imaginary selfdual (ISD) three-form…
I discuss some aspects of the moduli space of hyper-K{\"a}hler four-fold compactifications of type II and ${\cal M}$- theories. The dimension of the moduli space of these theories is strictly bounded from above. As an example I study…
We study 2-field inflation models based on the ``large-volume'' flux compactification of type IIB string theory. The role of the inflaton is played by a K\"ahler modulus \tau corresponding to a 4-cycle volume and its axionic partner \theta.…
We develop sequestered inflation models, where inflation occurs along flat directions in supergravity models derived from type IIB string theory. It is compactified on a ${\mathbb{T}^6 \over \mathbb{Z}_2 \times \mathbb{Z}_2}$ orientifold…
A holographic perspective to study and characterize field spaces that arise in string compactifications is suggested. A concrete correspondence is developed by studying two-dimensional moduli spaces in supersymmetric string…
We illustrate a framework for constructing models of chaotic inflation where the inflaton is the position of a D3 brane along the universal cover of a string compactification. In our scenario, a brane rolls many times around a non-trivial…
We consider inflation driven near a saddle point in a higher dimensional field space, which is the most likely type of slow roll inflation on the string theoretical landscape; anthropic arguments need to be invoked in order to find a…