Related papers: The Moduli Space Curvature and the Weak Gravity Co…
In this work, we aim to characterize the structure of higher-derivative corrections within low-energy Effective Field Theories (EFTs) arising from a UV-complete theory of quantum gravity. To this end, we use string theory as a laboratory…
We show that one can find de Sitter critical points (saddle points) in models of flux compactification of Type IIB String Theory without any uplifting terms and in the presence of several moduli. We demonstrate this by giving explicit…
We explore general scalar-tensor models in the presence of a kinetic mixing between matter and the scalar field, which we call Kinetic Matter Mixing. In the frame where gravity is de-mixed from the scalar this is due to disformal couplings…
We investigate the f(R) theory of gravity with broken diffeomorphism due to the change of the coefficient in front of the total divergence term in the (3+1)-decomposition of the scalar curvature. We perform the canonical analysis of this…
We make a number of conjectures about the geometry of continuous moduli parameterizing the string landscape. In particular we conjecture that such moduli are always given by expectation value of scalar fields and that moduli spaces with…
We discuss, in the context of alternative theories of gravity with nonminimal coupling between matter and curvature, if inflationary solutions driven by a single scalar field can be reconciled with the swampland conjectures about the…
The coupling of gravity to a scalar field raises a number of interesting questions of principle since the usual minimal coupling obtained by replacing ordinary derivatives with covariant derivatives is not available -- they are the same…
We give a short overview over recent work on finding constraints on partition functions of 2d CFTs from modular invariance. We summarize the constraints on the spectrum and their connection to Calabi-Yau compactifications.
The Weak Gravity Conjecture predicts that in quantum gravity there should exist overcharged states, that is states with charge larger than their mass. Extending this to large masses and charges, we are expecting similar overcharged…
The weak gravity conjecture has been invoked to conjecture that the dimensions of charged operators in a CFT should obey a superadditivity relation (sometimes referred to as convexity). In this paper, we study superadditivity of the…
The dilaton-gravity sector of a linear in the scalar curvature, scale invariant Two Measures Field Theory (TMT), is explored in detail in the context of closed FRW cosmology and shown to allow stable emerging universe solutions. The model…
This paper revisits the question of reconstructing bulk gauge fields as boundary operators in AdS/CFT. In the presence of the wormhole dual to the thermofield double state of two CFTs, the existence of bulk gauge fields is in some tension…
We investigate compactifications with duality twists and their relation to orbifolds and compactifications with fluxes. Inequivalent compactifications are classified by conjugacy classes of the U-duality group and result in gauged…
We describe general constraints on the elliptic genus of a 2d supersymmetric conformal field theory which has a gravity dual with large radius in Planck units. We give examples of theories which do and do not satisfy the bounds we derive,…
The motivation for Calabi-Yau-like compactifications of the weakly coupled $E_8\otimes E_8$ heterotic string theory, its particle spectrum and the issue of dilaton stabilization are briefly reviewed. Modular invariant models for hidden…
The weak gravity conjecture suggests that, in a self-consistent theory of quantum gravity, the strength of gravity is bounded from above by the strengths of the various gauge forces in the theory. In particular, this intriguing conjecture…
We derive new positivity bounds for scattering amplitudes in theories with a massless graviton in the spectrum in four spacetime dimensions, of relevance for the weak gravity conjecture and modified gravity theories. The bounds imply that…
We construct IIB supergravity (viewed as dilatonic gravity) background with non-trivial dilaton and with curved four-dimensional space. Such a background may describe another vacuum of maximally supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory or strong…
We extend the formulation of gauged supergravity in five dimensions, as obtained by compactification of $M$~theory on a deformed Calabi-Yau manifold, to include non-universal matter hypermultiplets. Even in the presence of this gauging,…
Fractons and other subdimensional particles are an exotic class of emergent quasi-particle excitations with severely restricted mobility. A wide class of models featuring these quasi-particles have a natural description in the language of…