Related papers: Dark energy: EFTs and supergravity
In these lectures, two different aspects of brane world scenarios in 5d gravity or string theory are discussed. In the first two lectures, work on how warped compactifications of 5d gravity theories can change the guise of the hierarchy…
The main goal of string phenomenology is to find realistic models of particle physics and cosmology within string theory. Dark bubble cosmology is an alternative to string compactifications, where our universe lives on a bubble expanding in…
We investigate the possibility of replacing the cosmological constant with gradual condensation of a scalar field produced during the decay of a superheavy dark matter. The advantage of this class of models to the ordinary quintessence is…
We review applications of string theory to cosmology, from primordial times to the present-day accelerated expansion. Starting with a brief overview of cosmology and string compactifications, we discuss in detail moduli stabilisation,…
Cosmic strings, topological defects predicted by high-energy theories, may contribute to the late-time expansion of the Universe, effectively mimicking dynamical dark energy. We investigate four phenomenological extensions of the…
We study the mediation of supersymmetry breaking in string compactifications whose moduli are stabilized by nonperturbative effects. We begin with a critical review of arguments for sequestering in supergravity and in string theory. We then…
Instant Folded Strings (IFSs) are unconventional light strings that emerge when the string coupling increases with time. A particularly intriguing property of IFSs, especially relevant to cosmology, is that they violate the Null Energy…
We analyse theories that do not have a de Sitter vacuum and cannot lead to slow-roll quintessence, but which nevertheless support a transient era of accelerated cosmological expansion due to interactions between a scalar $\phi$ and either a…
The effective field theory (EFT) of dark energy relies on three functions of time to describe the background dynamics. The viability of these functions is investigated here by means of a thorough dynamical analysis. While the system is…
Low energy effective actions arising from string theory typically contain many scalar fields, some with a very complicated potential and others with no potential at all. The evolution of these scalars is of great interest. Their late time…
Superstring theories are the most promising theories for unified description of all fundamental interactions including gravity. However, these theories are formulated consistently only in 10 spacetime dimensions. Therefore, to connect to…
Recently, attempts have been made to understand the apparent near coincidence of the present dark energy and matter energy in terms of a dynamical attractor-like solution for the evolution of a scalar field. In these models the field…
In this dissertation, the nature of Dark Energy (DE) is examined from both theoretical and phenomenological perspectives. The possibility of DE being a dynamic quantity in quantum field theory (QFT) in curved spacetime is studied. The…
We propose a manifestly U-duality invariant modular form for the D^4 R^4 interaction in type IIB string theory compactified on T^2. It receives perturbative contributions upto two loops, and non-perturbative contributions from D-instantons…
The Standard Model is the low-energy limit of a microscopic theory which includes extra dimensions and new symmetries. A part of my thesis consisted in constructing a new class of models with two extra dimensions. We showed that these…
1. Preliminaries. 2. Heterotic string and motivations for large volume compactifications; 2.1 Gauge coupling unification; 2.2 Supersymmetry breaking by compactification. 3. M-theory on S^1/Z_2 \times Calabi-Yau. 4. Type I/I' string theory…
We consider various candidates for Dark Energy, motivated by string theory. Several no-go theorems push de Sitter string vacua, with $w=-1$, to the limits of theoretical control, and all known examples depend on a delicate interplay between…
We investigate quantum corrections to the classical four-dimensional low-energy effective action of type II string theory compactified on SU(3) structure geometries. Various methods previously developed for Calabi-Yau compactifications are…
We show that four-dimensional $\mathcal N=1$ effective theories of gravity obtained from string compactifications require a non-perturbative completion, as additional light states of non-perturbative origin must be incorporated in the small…
We examine bounds on accelerated expansion in asymptotic regions of the moduli space in string theory compactifications to four spacetime dimensions. While there are conjectures that forbid or constrain accelerated expansion in such…