Related papers: Bumping into the species scale with the scalar pot…
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)…
We investigate the extent to which quintessence models for dark energy are fine-tuned in the context of recent swampland conjectures. In particular, the issue is whether there is a double fine-tuning in which both $V$ and $|\nabla V|$ are…
We study the relationship between the strength of fifth forces and the origin of scale breaking in the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics. We start with a light scalar field that is conformally coupled to a toy SM matter sector through…
The species cutoff is a moduli-dependent quantity signaling the onset of quantum gravitational phenomena, whose form can be oftentimes determined from higher-derivative and higher-curvature corrections within low-energy gravitational EFTs.…
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…
Asymptotic (late-time) cosmology depends on the asymptotic (infinite-distance) limits of scalar field space in string theory. Such limits feature an exponentially decaying potential $V \sim \exp(- c \phi)$ with corresponding Hubble scale $H…
We study constraints imposed by two proposed string Swampland criteria on cosmology. These criteria involve an upper bound on the range traversed by scalar fields as well as a lower bound on $|\nabla_{\phi} V|/V$ when $V >0$. We find that…
The potential energy from a time-dependent scalar field provides a possible explanation for the observed cosmic acceleration. In this paper, we investigate how data from supernova and bary acoustic oscillation surveys constrain the possible…
We analyse the role, on large cosmological scales and laboratory experiments, of the leading curvature squared contributions to the low energy effective action of gravity. We argue for a natural relationship $c_0\lambda^2\simeq 1$ at…
Models where the accelerated expansion of our Universe is caused by a quintessence scalar field are reviewed. In the framework of high energy physics, the physical nature of this field is discussed and its interaction with ordinary matter…
The paper studies eigenfunctions for the scalar field equation on $\R^N$ at the second minimax level $\lambda_2$. Similarly to the well-studied case of the ground state, there is a threshold level $\lambda^#$ such that $\lambda_2\le…
We investigate the observational consequences of the quintessence field rolling to and oscillating near a minimum in its potential, "if" it happens close to the present epoch (z<0.2). We show that in a class of models, the oscillations lead…
In this paper, we derive a characterisation of negative scalar potentials, $V<0$, in $d$-dimensional effective theories of quantum gravity. This is achieved thanks to an Anti-Trans-Planckian Censorship Conjecture (ATCC), inspired by a…
For evolution of flat universe, we classify late time and future attractors with scaling behavior of scalar field quintessence in the case of potential, which, at definite values of its parameters and initial data, corresponds to exact…
We investigate the dynamics of a flat isotropic brane Universe with two-component matter source: perfect fluid with the equation of state $p=(\gamma-1) \rho$ and a scalar field with a power-law potential $V \sim \phi^{\alpha}$. The index…
We develop a bifurcation-theoretic description of Friedmann--Robertson--Walker cosmologies with a scalar field $\phi$, a barotropic fluid of index $\gamma$, and spatial curvature. For the strict exponential potential…
The scalar field theory and the scalar electrodynamics quantized in the flat gap are considered. The dynamical effects arising due to the boundary presence with two types of boundary conditions (BC) satisfied by scalar fields are studied.…
We show that, as a result of non-linear self-interactions, it is feasible, at least in light of the bounds coming from terrestrial tests of gravity, measurements of the Casimir force and those constraints imposed by the physics of compact…
We indicated in our previous work that for QED the role of the scalar potential which appears at the loop level is much smaller than that of the vector potential and in fact negligible. But the situation is different for QCD, one reason is…
We consider a higher dimensional gravity theory with a negative kinetic energy scalar field and a cosmological constant. We find that the theory admits an exact cosmological solution for the scale factor of our universe. It has the feature…