Related papers: Transplanckian Axion Monodromy !?
An interesting feature of type IIB flux compactifications is the natural presence of strongly warped regions or `throats'. These regions allow for a 5d Randall-Sundrum model interpretation with a large hierarchy between the UV and IR brane.…
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,…
Natural (axionic) inflation can accommodate sizeable primordial tensor modes but suffers from the necessity of trans-Planckian variations of the inflaton field. This problem can be solved via the mechanism of aligned axions…
We consider a cosmological scenario within the KKLT framework for moduli stabilization in string theory. The universal open string tachyon of decaying non-BPS D-brane configurations is proposed to drive eternal topological inflation.…
We consider the conundrum of generating de Sitter space from higher-dimensional geometry, with particular attention to KKLT-type constructions arXiv:hep-th/0301240 and their 5d implications. We show that even in the probe approximation with…
The continuous shift symmetry of axions is at the heart of several realizations of inflationary models. In particular, axion monodromy inflation aims at achieving super-Planckian field ranges for the inflaton in the context of string…
We study the cosmology induced on a brane probing a warped throat region in a Calabi-Yau compactification of type IIB string theory. For the case of a BPS D3-brane probing the Klebanov-Strassler warped deformed conifold, the cosmology…
The low energy field theory for N type IIA D4-branes at strong 't Hooft coupling, wrapped on a circle with antiperiodic boundary conditions for fermions, is known to have a vacuum energy which depends on the $\theta$ angle for the gauge…
The stabilisation of the dilaton and volume in tree-level flux compactifications leads to model independent and thus very powerful existence and stability criteria for dS solutions. In this paper we show that the sizes of cycles wrapped by…
Wrapped branes in string compactifications introduce a monodromy that extends the field range of individual closed-string axions to beyond the Planck scale. Furthermore, approximate shift symmetries of the system naturally control…
We construct analytically a perturbative supergravity solution that captures the backreaction of a metastable state of anti-branes in the background of a particular modification of the Klebanov-Strassler throat in a long-wavelength…
We use the Dirac-Born-Infeld action to study the real time dynamics of a $Dp$-brane propagating in the vicinity of $NS5$-branes. This problem is closely related to tachyon condensation on an unstable D-brane, with the role of the tachyon…
We continue the study of compactifications of massive IIA supergravity on G2 orientifolds and demonstrate that breaking supersymmetry with anti-D2 and anti-D6 sources leads to 3d theories for which the typical tachyons haunting classical dS…
We construct a model of quintessence in string theory based on the idea of axion monodromy as discussed by McAllister, Silverstein and Westphal arXiv:0808.0706. In the model, the quintessence field is an axion whose shift symmetry is broken…
We study rolling radii solutions in the context of the four- and five-dimensional effective actions of heterotic M-theory. For the standard four-dimensional solutions with varying dilaton and T-modulus, we find approximate five-dimensional…
We develop new scenarios of large field inflation in type IIA string compactifications in which the key ingredient is a D6-brane that creates a potential for a B-field axion. The potential has the multi-branched structure typical of F-term…
Large field excursions are required in a number of axion models of inflation. These models also possess global cosmic strings, around which the axion follows a path mirroring the inflationary trajectory. Cosmic strings are thus an…
The original model of axion natural inflation produces a tensor-to-scalar ratio above the experimental limit. Aligned axion inflation admits inflationary trajectories that originate near a saddle point of the two-field potential, and…
We complete and extend the analysis of arXiv:1903.10504 in several directions: we put the 4d theory, arising from the IIA consistent truncation of the universal sector of Calabi-Yau compactification, in a form manifestly consistent with 4d…
We obtain smooth M-theory solutions whose geometry is a warped product of AdS_5 and a compact internal space that can be viewed as an S^4 bundle over S^2. The bundle can be trivial or twisted, depending on the even or odd values of the two…