Related papers: The Absolute Swampland
Principles are central to physical reasoning, particularly in the search for a theory of quantum gravity (QG), where novel empirical data is lacking. One principle widely adopted in the search for QG is UV completion: the idea that a theory…
We analyze AdS and dS swampland conjectures in a three-dimensional higher spin theory with self-interacting matter, which contains conformal gravity and is almost topological. A theory of a similar type was proposed as the effective theory…
Any theory of quantum gravity must ultimately be connected to observations. This demand is difficult to be met due to the high energies at which we expect the quantum nature of gravity to become manifest. Here we study, how viable quantum…
Our current best guess for a unified theory of gravitation and quantum field theory (string theory) generically predicts a set of requirements for a consistently quantized theory, the Swampland criteria. Refined versions of these criteria…
It is widely believed and in part established that exact global symmetries are inconsistent with quantum gravity. One then expects that approximate global symmetries can be quantitatively constrained by quantum gravity or swampland…
It has been notoriously difficult to construct a meta-stable de Sitter (dS) vacuum in string theory in a controlled approximation. This suggests the possibility that meta-stable dS belongs to the swampland. In this paper, we propose a…
The Weak Gravity Conjecture (WGC) posits that gravity must be the weakest force in any consistent theory of quantum gravity. Originally formulated to constrain the landscape of effective field theories arising from string theory, the WGC…
We point out that the swampland conjectures, forbidding the presence of global symmetries and (meta-)stable de Sitter vacua within quantum gravity, pick up a dynamical axion for the electroweak SU(2) gauge theory as a natural candidate for…
Asymptotic safety is a theoretical proposal for the ultraviolet completion of quantum field theories, in particular for quantum gravity. Significant progress on this program has led to a first characterization of the Reuter fixed point.…
Swampland conjectures (SCs) of string theory require that a constant cosmological constant $\Lambda$ be replaced by a time-dependent scalar-field quintessence with constrained parameters. The constraints limit the duration of the present…
In this paper we propose a quantum version of the swampland conjecture. We argue that quantum instabilities of de Sitter space discovered using field theoretical methods, are directly related to the difficulties in finding stringy de Sitter…
We point out that pure supergravity theories in $AdS$ with enough supersymmetry lead, upon taking the large radius limit, to flat space quantum gravities with a nonperturbatively exact global symmetry, and are therefore in the Swampland.…
Positivity bounds on scattering amplitudes provide a necessary condition for a low-energy effective field theory to have a consistent ultraviolet completion. Their extension to gravity theories has been studied in the past years aiming at…
We explore asymptotic safety of gravity-matter systems, discovering indications for a near-perturbative nature of these systems in the ultraviolet. Our results are based on the dynamical emergence of effective universality at the…
Completeness of the spectrum of charged branes in a quantum theory of gravity naturally motivates the question of whether consistency of what lives on the branes can be used to explain some of the Swampland conditions. In this paper we…
It is widely believed that consistent theories of quantum gravity satisfy two basic kinematic constraints: they are free from any global symmetry, and they contain a complete spectrum of gauge charges. For compact, abelian gauge groups,…
Several arguments given in arXiv:1912.12316 suggest that braneworld effective models with fields strictly localized on $\delta$-like branes cannot be UV-completed by a fundamental theory including gravity, i.e. they belong to the Swampland.…
We compute the asymptotic safety landscape stemming from ultraviolet-complete photon-graviton flows in a field theoretic setup, and we confront it with the weak gravity conjecture and, for the first time, with positivity bounds. At fourth…
We posit the existence of the Marshland within string theory. This region is the boundary between the landscape of consistent low-energy limits of quantum gravity, and the swampland of theories that cannot be embedded within string theory…
Present day physics rests on two main pillars: General relativity and quantum field theory. We discuss the deep and at the same time problematic interplay between these two theories. Based on an argument by Doplicher, Fredenhagen, and…