Related papers: Asymptotic safety, string theory and the weak grav…
A criterion to be satisfied by a string theory of QCD is formulated in the ultraviolet regime. It arises from the trace anomaly of the QCD stress tensor computed using instantons. It is sensitive to asymptotic freedom. It appears to be…
It is pointed out that string-loop effects may generate matter couplings for the dilaton allowing this scalar partner of the tensorial graviton to stay massless while contributing to macroscopic gravity in a way naturally compatible with…
If the graviton possesses an arbitrarily small (but nonvanishing) mass, perturbation theory implies that cosmic strings have a nonzero Newtonian potential. Nevertheless in Einstein gravity, where the graviton is strictly massless, the…
We solve what is quite likely the simplest model of quantum gravity, the worldsheet theory of an infinitely long, free bosonic string in Minkowski space. Contrary to naive expectations, this theory is non-trivial. We illustrate this by…
We zoom in on the microscopic dynamics for fermions and quantum gravity within the asymptotic-safety paradigm. A key finding of our study is the unavoidable presence of a nonminimal derivative coupling between the curvature and fermion…
Flat directions are a generic feature of the scalar potential in supersymmetric gauge field theories. They can arise, for example, from D-terms associated with an extra abelian gauge symmetry. Even when supersymmetry is broken softly, there…
Strong (sublattice or tower) formulations of the Weak Gravity Conjecture (WGC) imply that, if a weakly coupled gauge theory exists, a tower of charged particles drives the theory to strong coupling at an ultraviolet scale well below the…
A radiatively stable de Sitter spacetime is constructed by considering an intrinsically non-commutative and generalized-geometric formulation of string theory, which is related to a family of F-theory models endowed with non-trivial…
String theory is the leading candidate for a unified theory of the standard model and gravity. In the last few years theorists have realized that there is a unique structure underlying string theory. In this unification a prominent role is…
In this Thesis we investigate properties of stability, rigidity and unitarity of the string landscape in ten and lower dimensions. The dissertation explores these aspects by intertwining a detailed analysis of string vacua, with and without…
The minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM), is perhaps the leading candidate for new physics beyond the standard model, but it encounters difficulties with string gauge unification and in addition does not shed any light on the…
We investigate the renormalization group flow of a gravity--matter system in which a scalar field is minimally coupled to Einstein gravity and its kinetic term is given by a scale-dependent form factor $f_\Lambda(-\Box)$. Employing the…
In an on-shell conformal field theory approach, we find indications of a three-bracket structure for target space coordinates in general closed string backgrounds. This generalizes the appearance of noncommutative gauge theories for open…
All known examples of four dimensional quantum field theories with asymptotic freedom or asymptotic safety at weak coupling involve non-abelian gauge interactions. We demonstrate that this is not a coincidence: no weakly coupled fixed…
We argue that there are generic solutions to the type 0 gravity equations of motion that are confining in the infrared and have log scaling in the ultraviolet. The background curvature generically diverges in the IR. Nevertheless, there…
In the framework of the functional renormalization group method it is shown that the phase structure of the 2-dimensional sine-Gordon model possesses a nontrivial UV fixed point which makes the model asymptotically safe. The fixed point…
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…
We investigate the vacuum stability as well as the gravitational corrections in extensions of the Standard Model featuring a new complex scalar, and two Dirac fermions for different choices of the hypercharge of the scalar and one of the…
Safe theories are quantum field theories whose continuum limit is defined by a non-Gaussian ultraviolet fixed point when the ultraviolet cutoff is removed. They constitute an important set in the space of quantum field theories. Here we…
Realizing dark energy and the observed de Sitter spacetime in quantum gravity has proven to be obstructed in most every usual approach. We argue that additional degrees of freedom of the left- and right-movers in string theory and a…