Related papers: String or M theory axion as a quintessence
String theory enjoys an elevated role among quantum gravity theories, since it seems to be the most consistent UV completion of general relativity and the Standard Model. However, it is hard to verify the existence of this underlying theory…
Dark energy, the main constituent in our expanding universe, responsible for its acceleration, is currently being observed with unprecedented precision through various experiments. While several cosmological models can fit this latest data,…
We study time-dependent solutions in M and superstring theories with higher order corrections. We first present general field equations for theories of Lovelock type with stringy corrections in arbitrary dimensions. We then exhaust all…
In this thesis, we explore two approaches to string phenomenology. In the first half of the work, we investigate M-theory compactifications on spaces with co-dimension four, orbifold singularities. We construct M-theory on C^2/Z_N by…
Multidimensionality of our Universe is one of the most intriguing assumption in modern physics. It follows naturally from theories unifying different fundamental interactions with gravity, e.g. M/string theory. The idea has received a great…
Single-field models of accelerated expansion with nearly flat potentials, despite being able to provide observationally viable explanations for the early-time cosmic inflation and the late-time cosmic acceleration, are in strong tension…
At present we know nothing about the nature of the dark energy accounting for about 70% of the energy density of the Universe. One possibility is that the dark energy is provided by an extremely light field, the quintessence, rolling down…
The evolution of the quintessence field during a phase of chaotic inflation is studied. The inflaton and the quintesssence field are described in a supergravity framework where the coupling between the inflaton and quintessence is induced…
Non-supersymmetric brane world scenarios in string theory display perturbative instabilities that usually involve run-away potentials for scalar moduli fields. We investigate in the framework of intersecting brane worlds whether the leading…
We study models of modular inflation of the form expected to arise from low energy effective actions of superstring theories. We argue on general grounds that the most likely models of modular slow-roll inflation are small field models in…
It is usually thought that the quintessence as a fundamental scalar field was already present during the inflationary epoch. While there are various models in which the quintessence couples to other species, it is attractive to anticipate a…
High-scale string inflationary models are in well-known tension with low-energy supersymmetry. A promising solution involves models where the inflaton is the volume of the extra dimensions so that the gravitino mass relaxes from large…
In string theory, the traditional picture of a Universe that emerges from the inflation of a very small and highly curved space-time patch is a possibility, not a necessity: quite different initial conditions are possible, and not…
We study the minimal requirements to obtain axion strings for axions with exponentially good quality. These ingredients appear in theories where an axion coming from a higher-form gauge field mixes with the phase of a complex scalar field…
The four-dimensional superstring solutions define at low energy effective supergravity theories. A class of them extends successfully the validity of the standard model up to the string scale (${\cal O}(10^{17})~TeV$). We stress the…
At its very beginning, the universe is believed to have grown exponentially in size via the mechanism of inflation. The almost scale-invariant density perturbation spectrum predicted by inflation is strongly supported by cosmological…
It was recently pointed out that the cosmological constant (even metastable one) belongs to the so-called "swampland" and hence cannot be obtained as the low-energy limit of string theory that requires $|\nabla V| > c V$. If true, the dark…
The focus of this thesis is on (1) the role of Ka\v c-Moody (KM) algebras in string theory and the development of techniques for systematically building string theory models based on higher level ($K\geq 2$) KM algebras and (2) fractional…
We conduct a systematic search for a viable string/M-theory cosmology, focusing on cosmologies that include an era of slow-roll inflation, after which the moduli are stabilized and the Universe is in a state with an acceptably small…
De Sitter solutions have been recently conjectured to be incompatible with quantum gravity. In this paper we critically assess the progress and challenges of different mechanisms to obtain de Sitter vacua in string compactifications and…