Related papers: A Framework for the Landscape
We construct domain walls and instantons in a class of models with coupled scalar fields, determining, in agreement with previous studies, that many such solutions contain naked timelike singularities. Vacuum bubble solutions of this type…
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…
The String Landscape is a fantasy. We actually have a plausible landscape of minimally supersymmetric $AdS_4$ solutions of supergravity modified by an exponential superpotential. None of these solutions is accessible to world sheet…
Motivated by the discovery of a plenitude of metastable vacua in a string landscape and the possibility of rapid tunneling between these vacua, we revisit the dynamics of a false vacuum bubble in a background de Sitter spacetime. We find…
We put forward a framework for cosmology that combines the string landscape with no boundary initial conditions. In this framework, amplitudes for alternative histories for the universe are calculated with final boundary conditions only.…
Since the advent of inflation, several theorems have been proven suggesting that although inflation can (and generically does) continue eternally into the future, it cannot be extended eternally into the past to create a ``steady-state''…
String theory is arguably the best candidate for a theory of quantum gravity and unified interactions. Reconciling Einstein's theory of General Relativity with Quantum Mechanics. The theory however is best understood on Minkowski and…
We construct a new type of S-matrix in quantum field theory using the general boundary formulation. In contrast to the usual S-matrix the space of free asymptotic states is located at spatial rather than at temporal infinity. Hence, the new…
We propose a simple, well-motivated and robust alternative to a metastable de Sitter vacuum in string theory, consistent with current observations of dark energy and naturally satisfying conjectured swampland constraints. Inflation ends in…
Heterotic toroidal orbifolds are a powerful framework for testing our understanding of string vacua. We review recent advances in heterotic model building, from constructing new vacua to proving novel de Sitter no-go theorems. We also…
KKLT give a mechanism to generate de Sitter vacua in string theory. And recently, the scenario, {\em landscape}, is suggested to explain the problem of the cosmological constant. In this scenario, the cosmological constant is a de Sitter…
We construct a new class of metastable de Sitter vacua of flux compactifications of type IIB string theory. These solutions provide a natural extension of the `Large Volume Scenario' anti-de Sitter vacua, and can analogously be realised at…
String geometry theory is a candidate of the non-perturvative formulation of string theory. In this theory, strings constitute not only particles but also the space-time. In this review, we identify perturbative vacua, and derive the…
We derive a sufficient condition for realizing meta-stable de Sitter vacua with small positive cosmological constant within type IIB string theory flux compactifications with spontaneously broken supersymmetry. There are a number of `lamp…
In some string theories, e.g. SO(32) heterotic string theory on Calabi-Yau manifolds, a massless field with a tree level potential can acquire a tachyonic mass at the one loop level, forcing us to quantize the theory around a new background…
Motivated by the recently proposed bounds on the slow-roll parameters for scalar potentials arising from string/M-theory compactifications, a.k.a. the Refined de Sitter Swampland conjecture, we explore the sharpness of such constraints…
We argue that, under certain plausible assumptions, de Sitter space settles into a quiescent vacuum in which there are no dynamical quantum fluctuations. Such fluctuations require either an evolving microstate, or time-dependent histories…
We review recent developments in the construction of heterotic and type II string field theories and their various applications. These include systematic procedures for determining the shifts in the vacuum expectation values of fields under…
This elementary introduction to string field theory highlights the features and the limitations of this approach to quantum gravity as it is currently understood. String field theory is a formulation of string theory as a field theory in…
We show that a unique, most probable and stable solution for the wavefunction of the universe, with a very small cosmological constant $\Lambda_1 \simeq (\frac{\pi}{l_p N})^2$, can be predicted from the supersymmetric minisuperspace with…