Related papers: Aether, Dark Energy, and String Compactifications
Possible connections between quantum entanglement and cosmological eras are considered. In particular, assuming that two epochs are each other entangled, by measuring the entanglement degree, it is possible to recover dynamical properties…
We present a systematic exploration of dark energy and modified gravity models containing a single scalar field non-minimally coupled to the metric. Even though the parameter space is large, by exploiting an effective field theory (EFT)…
In the early Universe, dark energy may have a non-negligible contribution. If this dark energy corresponds to an early cosmological constant, it leads to a late-time huge dark energy density which is much larger than what is expected for…
Classical superstring vacua have zero vacuum energy and are supersymmetric and Lorentz-invariant. We argue that all these properties may be destroyed when quantum aspects of the interactions between particles and non-perturbative vacuum…
D-branes, topological defects in string theory on which string endpoints can live, may give new insight into the understanding of the cosmological evolution of the Universe at early epochs. We analyze the dynamics of D-branes in curved…
We describe cosmic F--term strings with exponentially small tension which are D3 branes wrapped on deformed $A_3$ singularities. We show that brane instanton effects which can be calculated after a geometric transition give rise to an…
Constantly accumulating observational data continue to confirm that about 70% of the energy density today consists of dark energy responsible for the accelerated expansion of the Universe. We present recent observational bounds on dark…
Explanations of the late-time cosmic acceleration within the framework of general relativity are plagued by difficulties. General relativistic models are mostly based on a dark energy field with fine-tuned, unnatural properties. There is a…
We consider a late-time cosmological model based on a recent proposal that the infinite-bare-coupling limit of superstring/M-theory exists and has good phenomenological properties, including a vanishing cosmological constant, and a…
It was recently pointed out that the existence of dark energy imposes highly restrictive constraints on effective field theories that satisfy the Swampland conjectures. We provide a critical confrontation of these constraints with the…
We analyze, within the framework of unified brane gravity, the weak-field perturbations caused by the presence of matter on a 3-brane. Although deviating from the Randall-Sundrum approach, the masslessness of the graviton is still…
We propose a toy model of Dark Energy in which the degrees of freedom currently dominating the energy density of the universe are described by a pseudo-scalar "axion field" linearly coupled to the Pontryagin density, $ \text{tr}(F \wedge…
The dynamics of extended objects, such as strings and membranes, has attracted more attention in the past decades since the fundamental objects introduced in high-energy physics are no longer pointlike. Their motion is generally quite…
The idea that dark energy is gravitational waves may explain its strength and its time-evolution provided that the additional energy comes from a background. A possible concept is that dark energy is the ensemble of coherent bursts…
We study the properties and phenomenology of particle-like states originating from D-branes whose spatial dimensions are all compactified. They are non-perturbative states in string theory and we refer to them as D-matter. In contrast to…
We discuss how to formulate a quantum field theory of dark energy interacting with dark matter. We show that the proposals based on the assumption that dark matter is made up of heavy particles with masses which are very sensitive to the…
We show that M-theory admits a supersymmetric compactification to the Godel universe of the form Godel3 x S2 x CY3. We interpret this geometry as coming from the backreaction of M2-branes wrapping the S2 in an AdS3 x S2 x CY3 flux…
We revisit the effective low-energy dynamics of the volume modulus in warped flux compactifications with anti-D3-branes in order to analyze the prospects for meta-stable de Sitter vacua and brane inflation along the lines of KKLT/KKLMMT. At…
Observational evidence for the existence of dark energy is strong. Here we suggest a model which is based on a modified gravitational theory in 5D and interpret the 5th dimension as a manifestation of dark energy in the 4D observable…
We investigate a static, cylindrically symmetric cosmic string on the brane without a perturbative approximation. We find there could be a (large) enhancement of the (effective) string tension when the energy density at the center of the…