Related papers: Violations of the equivalence principle in a dilat…
In a recently proposed scenario, where the dilaton decouples while cosmologically attracted towards infinite bare string coupling, its residual interactions can be related to the amplitude of density fluctuations generated during inflation,…
One of the few firm predictions of string theory is the existence of a massless scalar field coupled to gravity, the dilaton. In its presence, the value of the fundamental constants of the universe, such as the fine-structure constant, will…
It is pointed out that string-loop modifications of the low-energy matter couplings of the dilaton may provide a mechanism for fixing the vacuum expectation value of a massless dilaton in a way which is naturally compatible with existing…
One of the clear predictions of string theory is the presence of a dynamical scalar partner of the spin-2 graviton, known as the dilaton. This will violate the Einstein Equivalence Principle, leading to a plethora of possibly observable…
We consider the dilaton in the strong string coupling limit and elaborate on the original idea of Damour and Polyakov whereby the dilaton coupling to matter has a minimum with a vanishing value at finite field-value. Combining this type of…
We formulate new conformal models of inflation and dark energy which generalise the Higgs-Dilaton scenario. We embed these models in unimodular gravity whose effect is to break scale invariance in the late time Universe. In the early…
We study a string-inspired dilaton cosmology in the Damour--Polyakov (DP) regime using dynamical-systems methods, aiming to make explicit how cosmological relaxation controls deviations from the equivalence principle. Working in the…
A scale invariant model containing dilaton $\phi$ and dust (as a model of matter) is studied where the shift symmetry $\phi\to\phi +const.$ is spontaneously broken at the classical level due to intrinsic features of the model. The dilaton…
Experimental discovery of the dilaton would provide strong evidence for string theory. A light dilaton could show up in current tests of the inverse square law for gravity at sub-millimeter distances. In the large extra dimension scenario,…
In this paper, we show that there exists a class of dilaton models with non-trivial scalar-Ricci and scalar-matter couplings that strongly reduces observational deviations from general relativity in the dust limit. Essentially, depending on…
We propose a novel self consistent minimal coupling principle in presence of torsion dilaton field. This principle yields a new local dilatation symmetry and predicts the interactions of torsion dilaton with the real matter and with metric.…
String-loop effects may generate very weak matter couplings for a (massless) dilaton. We examine limits on the shift of such a dilaton toward its present equilibrium value from big-bang nucleosynthesis and the binary pulsar. On the other…
We consider a late-time cosmological model based on a recent proposal that the infinite-bare-coupling limit of superstring/M-theory exists and has good phenomenological properties, including a vanishing cosmological constant, and a…
The statistical tension between early and late universe measurements of the Hubble constant ($H_0$) suggests that the dark sector is dynamical rather than static. We propose that this dynamics arises from a fundamental symmetry principle:…
Light scalar particles with couplings of sub-gravitational strength, which can generically be called 'dilatons', can produce violations of the equivalence principle. However, in order to understand experimental sensitivities one must know…
Models of scalar field dark matter where the scalar is a dilaton have a special behaviour, since non-trivial couplings, $d$, to matter result in a contribution to the potential for the field which is proportional to the trace of the…
We present a class of simple scalar-tensor models of gravity with one scalar field (dilaton $\Phi$) and only one unknown function (cosmological potential $U(\Phi)$). These models might be considered as a stringy inspired ones with broken…
We review a possible non-minimal coupling (dilatonic) of a scalar field (axion like particle) to electromagnetism, through experimental and observational constraints. Such a coupling is motivated from recent quasar spectrum observations…
In order to solve the fine-tuning problem of the cosmological constant, we propose a simple model with the vacuum energy non-minimally coupled to the inflaton field. In this model, the vacuum energy decays to the inflaton during…
We present a scenario where a $Z_2$-symmetric scalar field $\phi$ first drives cosmic inflation, then reheats the Universe but remains out-of-equilibrium itself, and finally comprises the observed dark matter abundance, produced by particle…