Related papers: Cosmology From Random Multifield Potentials
We suggest a novel picture of the quantum Universe -- its creation is described by the {\em density matrix} defined by the Euclidean path integral. This yields an ensemble of universes -- a cosmological landscape -- in a mixed state which…
At very early times, the universe was not in a vacuum state. Under the assumtion that the deviation from equillibrium was large, in particular that it is higher than the scale of inflation, we analyse the conditions for local transitions…
In BP models with hundreds of fluxes, we compute the effects of cosmological dynamics on the probability distribution of landscape vacua. Starting from generic initial conditions, we find that most fluxes are dynamically driven into a…
Under the belief that the universe should be multi-feature and informative, we employ a model-by-model comparison method to explore the possibly largest upper bound on the swampland constant $c$. Considering the interacting quintessence…
We study inflation in models with many interacting fields subject to randomly generated scalar potentials. We use methods from non-equilibrium random matrix theory to construct the potentials and an adaption of the 'transport method' to…
There are well-known criteria on the potential and field-space geometry for determining if slow-roll, slow-turn, multi-field inflation is possible. However, even though it has been a topic of much recent interest, slow-roll, rapid-turn…
We argue that in the context of string theory a large number N of connected degenerate vacua that mix will lead to a ground state with much lower energy, essentially because of the standard level repulsion of quantum theory for the…
The creation of a quantum Universe is described by a {\em density matrix} which yields an ensemble of universes with the cosmological constant limited to a bounded range $\Lambda_{\rm min}\leq \Lambda \leq \Lambda_{\rm max}$. The domain…
Cosmological inflation is not the only early universe scenario consistent with current observational data. I will discuss the criteria for a successful early universe cosmology, compare a couple of the proposed scenarios (inflation,…
The Swampland Distance Conjecture (SDC) constraints the dynamics emerging at infinite distances in field space of any effective field theory consistent with quantum gravity. It provides a relation between the cut-off in energies and the…
The nonminimal coupling (NMC) of the scalar field to the Ricci curvature is unavoidable in many cosmological scenarios. Inflation and quintessence models based on nonminimally coupled scalar fields are studied, with particular attention to…
We argue that in the context of eternal inflation in the landscape, making predictions for cosmological -- and possibly particle physics -- observables requires a measure on the possible cosmological histories as opposed to one on the vacua…
We explore the super-horizon evolution of the two-point and three-point correlation functions of the primordial density perturbation in randomly-generated multi-field potentials. We use the Transport method to evolve perturbations and give…
We revisit models of natural inflation and show that the single-field effective theory described by the potential $V(a)\sim \cos\frac{a}{f}$ breaks down as the inflaton $a$ makes large-field excursions, even for values of $f$ smaller than…
We provide a unified description of cosmological $\alpha$-attractors and late-time acceleration, in excellent agreement with the latest Planck data. Our construction involves two superfields playing distinctive roles: one is the dynamical…
There is increasing evidence from string theory that effective field theories are only reliable over approximately sub-Planckian field excursions. The two most promising effective models for early universe cosmology, inflation and…
The detection of an oscillating pattern in the bispectrum of density perturbations could suggest the existence of a high-energy second minimum in the Higgs potential. If the Higgs field resided in this new minimum during inflation and was…
Realistic models of particle physics include many scalar fields. These fields generically have nonminimal couplings to the Ricci curvature scalar, either as part of a generalized Einstein theory or as necessary counterterms for…
We study inflation in a random multifield potential, using techniques developed by Marsh et al. The potential is a function of a large number of fields, and we choose parameters so that inflation only occurs in regions where the potential…
We argue that the study of the statistics of the landscape of string vacua provides the first potentially predictive -- and also falsifiable -- framework for string theory. The question of whether the theory does or does not predict low…