Related papers: Cosmology of Light Moduli
Standard lore asserts that quantum effects generically forbid the occurrence of light (non-pseudo-Goldstone) scalars having masses smaller than the Kaluza Klein scale, M_KK, in extra-dimensional models, or the gravitino mass, M_3/2, in…
There are at least two serious moduli problems in string cosmology. The first is the possibility that moduli dominate the energy density at the time of nucleosynthesis. The second is that they may not find their minima all together. After…
We point out that in theories where the gravitino mass, $M_{3/2}$, is in the range (10-50)TeV, with soft-breaking scalar masses and trilinear couplings of the same order, there exists a robust region of parameter space where the conditions…
We discuss the stabilization of the compact dimension for a class of five-dimensional orbifold supergravity models. Supersymmetry is broken by the superpotential on a boundary. Classically, the size $L$ of the fifth dimension is…
We review current cosmological constraints on the axion. We describe the basic mechanisms by which axions are created in the early universe, focussing on the standard thermal scenario where the dominant process is through axion radiation by…
We investigate the cosmological moduli problem by studying a modulus decay in detail and find that the branching ratio of the gravitino production is generically of O(0.01-1), which causes another cosmological disaster. Consequently, the…
We study the cosmology of supersymmetric models in which the supersymmetry breaking effects are mediated by gauge interactions at about the 10^5 GeV scale. We first point out that the gravitino is likely to overclose the Universe in this…
We show that stable local cosmic strings are a generic prediction of supersymmetric models where supersymmetry is broken at scales within a few orders of magnitude of the weak scale and is fed down to the observable sector by gauge…
The current cosmological bound on the invisible axion scale may be avoided in the class of theories in which the gauge coupling constant is determined through the expectation value of some scalar field (e.g. moduli in supergravity and…
Various authors have noted that in particular models, the upper bound on the axion decay constant may not hold. We point out that within supersymmetry, this is a generic issue. For large decay constants, the cosmological problems associated…
Explicit string models which can realize inflation and low-energy supersymmetry are notoriously difficult to achieve. Given that sequestering requires very specific configurations, supersymmetric particles are in general expected to be very…
We argue that supersymmetry breaking by gaugino condensation in the strongly coupled heterotic string can be described by an analogue of Scherk-Schwarz compactification on the eleventh dimension in M-theory. The M-theory scale is identified…
Ultra-light axions ($m_a\lesssim 10^{-18}$eV), motivated by string theory, can be a powerful probe of the energy scale of inflation. In contrast to heavier axions the isocurvature modes in the ultra-light axions can coexist with observable…
We investigate moduli field dynamics in supergravity/M-theory like set ups where we turn on fluxes along some or all of the extra dimensions. As has been argued in the context of string theory, we observe that the fluxes tend to stabilize…
I review the relations between mass scales in various string theories and in M-theory. I discuss physical motivations and possible consistent realizations of large volume compactifications and low string scale. Large longitudinal…
Supersymmetry breaking in string theory is expected to occur when moduli fields acquire non-trivial expectation values. In the early universe these fields start out displaced from their final destinations. I present some recent ideas about…
In Kaluza-Klein (KK) compactification of gravitational theories, moduli fields, which are scalar fields associated to the deformations of the compact manifold, are typically lighter than the KK gravitons. However, a universal limit on their…
${\rm B - L}$ cosmic strings form in a wide class of theories beyond the Standard Model which contain a ${\rm U}(1)_{{\rm B - L}}$ gauge symmetry. They can form at the end of hybrid inflation and explain, together with inflation, the Cosmic…
We examine the large volume compactification of Type IIB string theory or its F theory limit and the associated supersymmetry breakdown and soft terms. It is crucial to incorporate the loop-induced moduli mixing, originating from radiative…
We derive cosmological constraints on the masses of generic scalar fields which decay only through gravitationally suppressed interactions into unstable gravitinos and ordinary particles in the supersymmetric standard model. For the…