Related papers: Cosmic Birefringence from Monodromic Axion Dark En…
Discrete symmetries allowed in string compactification are the mother of all global symmetries which are broken at some level. We discuss the resulting pseudo-Goldstone bosons, in particular the QCD axion and a temporary cosmological…
Axions have emerged as compelling candidates for describing the dark sector of the Universe. In this work, we explore quintessence models inspired by axion-like potentials as a dynamical alternative to the cosmological constant. These…
One fundamental physics interpretation of Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) results is that the observed accelerated expansion of the Universe is driven not by the cosmological constant, but by a slowly rolling scalar field, a…
Parity violating extensions of the standard electromagnetic theory cause in vacuo rotation of the plane of polarization of propagating photons. This effect, also known as cosmic birefringence, impacts the cosmic microwave background (CMB)…
Consistent frameworks of quantum gravity often predict the existence of large numbers of ultralight pseudoscalar degrees of freedom, forming the phenomenological landscape of the String Axiverse. The complexity of the extra-dimensional…
We study the stability of extra dimensions in string gas cosmology at late times. Vacuum energy and, interestingly, baryons lead to decompactification after they become dynamically important. The string gas can stabilise the effect of…
Axions seem ubiquitous in string theories and some of them may be produced non-thermally by heavy scalar decays, contributing to dark radiation. We study various cosmological effects of photons produced from the axionic dark radiation…
We argue that coherent oscillations of the axion field excited by the misalignment mechanism and non-thermal leptogenesis by the saxion decay can naturally explain the observed abundance of dark matter and baryon asymmetry, thus providing a…
In the present work we study a dark energy model in which a non-linear scalar field (tachyon) with a Born-Infeld type of action is responsible for the observed cosmic acceleration. The potential of the tachyon is well-motivated since it…
We argue that, for generic string compactifications, dark energy is likely to signal the beginning of the end of our universe, perhaps even through decompactification, with possible implications for the cosmological coincidence problem.…
Cosmic birefringence (CB) is the rotation of the photons' linear polarisation plane during propagation. Such an effect is a tracer of parity-violating extensions of standard electromagnetism and would probe the existence of a new…
We provide a short overview of recent progress made in our understanding of the dark sector based on the Swampland program which in turn is rooted in lessons from string theory. We explain how the existence of one extra mesoscopic dimension…
Exciting clues to isotropic cosmic birefringence have recently been detected in the $EB$ cross-power spectra of the polarization data of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). Early Dark Energy (EDE) models with a pseudoscalar field coupled…
Recent BICEP2 detection of low-multipole B-mode polarization anisotropy in the cosmic microwave background radiation supports the inflationary universe scenario and suggests a large inflaton field range. The latter feature can be achieved…
In this Letter, we study the implications of string Swampland criteria for dark energy in view of ongoing and future cosmological observations. If string theory should be the ultimate quantum gravity theory, there is evidence that exact de…
The intersection of string theory with cosmology is unavoidable in the early universe, and its exploration may shine light on both fields. In this thesis, three papers at this intersection are presented and reviewed, with the aim of…
It has recently been suggested that the presence of a plenitude of light axions, an Axiverse, is evidence for the extra dimensions of string theory. We discuss the observational consequences of these axions on astrophysical black holes…
[Abridged] By combining swampland conjectures with observational data, it was recently noted that our universe could stretch off in an asymptotic region of the string landscape of vacua. In this framework, the cosmological hierarchy problem…
Cosmological consequences of a string-motivated dark energy scenario featuring a scalar field coupled to the Gauss-Bonnet invariant are investigated. We study the evolution of the universe in such a model, identifying its key properties.…
Cosmic birefringence is a parity-violating effect that might have rotated the plane of linearly polarized light of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) by an angle $\beta$ since its emission. This has recently been measured to be non-zero…