Related papers: A distance conjecture beyond moduli?
We study the cosmological evolution of scalar fields with arbitrary potentials in the presence of a barotropic fluid (matter or radiation) without making any assumption on which term dominates. We determine what kind of potentials V(phi)…
In this paper we propose two guiding principles that suggest a number of conjectures (some now proved) about various forms of rigidity for moduli spaces arising in algebraic geometry. Such conjectures have group-theoretic, topological and…
We discuss several aspects of the cosmological evolution of moduli fields in heterotic string/M-theory scenarios. In particular we study the equations of motion of both the dilaton and overall modulus of these theories in the presence of an…
For any quasi de Sitter background, we show that a recently proposed scalar weak gravity conjecture (sWGC) follows from the swampland distance conjecture, together with the covariant entropy bound. While pointing out the limitations of our…
The possibility to have a deviation from relativistic quantum field theory requiring to go beyond effective field theories is discussed. A few recent attempts to go in this direction both at the theoretical and phenomenological levels are…
The swampland distance conjecture (SDC) addresses the ability of effective field theory to describe distant points in moduli space. It is natural to ask whether there is a local version of the SDC: is it possible to construct local…
We investigate infinite distance limits in the complex structure moduli space of F-theory compactified on K3 to eight dimensions. While this is among the simplest possible arenas to test ideas about the Swampland Distance Conjecture, it is…
Effective field theories endowed with a nontrivial moduli space may be broken down by several, distinct effects as the energy scales that are probed increase. These may include the appearance of a finite number of new states, or the…
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…
Recent observations of distant supernovae imply, in defiance of expectations, that the universe growth is accelerating, contrary to what has always been assumed that the expansion is slowing down due to gravity. In this paper a…
Modified gravity theories are a popular alternative to dark energy as a possible explanation for the observed accelerating cosmic expansion, and their cosmological tests are currently an active research field. Studies in recent years have…
We show that various scalar field models of dark energy predict degenerate luminosity distance history of the Universe and thus cannot be distinguished by supernovae measurements alone. In particular, models with a vanishing cosmological…
The volume conjecture states that for a hyperbolic knot K in the three-sphere S^3 the asymptotic growth of the colored Jones polynomial of K is governed by the hyperbolic volume of the knot complement S^3\K. The conjecture relates two…
We consider the ekpyrotic paradigm in the context of loop quantum cosmology. In loop quantum cosmology the classical big-bang singularity is resolved due to quantum gravity effects, and so the contracting ekpyrotic branch of the universe…
We study the cosmology of K-mouflage theories at the background level. We show that the effects of the scalar field are suppressed at high matter density in the early Universe and only play a role in the late time Universe where the…
The global behavior of scalar field cosmological models with very hard potential walls is investigated via the simple example of an exponentially steep potential well. It is found that the solutions exhibit a non-trivial oscillatory…
We study a scenario with a transient phase of cosmological acceleration that could potentially be realized in asymptotic corners of String Theory moduli space. A very steep scalar potential is temporarily stabilized by the effect of a…
Current cosmological data seem to show that dark energy is evolving in time and that it possibly crossed the phantom divide in the past. So far the only theories that lead to such a behavior involve a non-trivial coupling between dark…
In cyclic universe models based on a single scalar field (e.g., the radion determining the distance between branes in M-theory), virtually the entire universe makes it through the ekpyrotic smoothing and flattening phase, bounces, and…
We investigate the applicability of the moduli space approximation in theories with unbroken non-Abelian gauge symmetries. Such theories have massless magnetic monopoles that are manifested at the classical level as clouds of non-Abelian…