Related papers: Moduli Fields as Quintessence and the Chameleon
We show how a nonlocal gravitational interaction can circumvent the Weinberg no-go theorem on cosmological constant, which forbids the existence of any solution to the cosmological constant problem within the context of local field theories…
The problem of the stabilization of moduli is discussed within the context of compactified strongly coupled heterotic string theory. It is shown that all geometric, vector bundle and five-brane moduli are completely fixed, within a…
We construct a model of quintessence in string theory based on the idea of axion monodromy as discussed by McAllister, Silverstein and Westphal arXiv:0808.0706. In the model, the quintessence field is an axion whose shift symmetry is broken…
We describe a Higgs mechanism for the partially massless graviton. In order to do so, we first construct a covariant fracton-like effective field theory on de Sitter space that linearly realizes a dipolar shift symmetry. The global symmetry…
The Standard Model is the low-energy limit of a microscopic theory which includes extra dimensions and new symmetries. A part of my thesis consisted in constructing a new class of models with two extra dimensions. We showed that these…
We have investigated a brane world model in which the gravitational field in the bulk is described both by a metric tensor and a minimally coupled scalar field. This scalar field is taken to be a chameleon with an appropriate potential…
The framework for considering the astronomical and cosmological observations in the context of scalar-tensor quintessence in which the quintessence field also accounts for a time dependence of the gravitational constant is developed. The…
In this talk we present a model of the universe in which dark energy is modelled explicitely with both a dynamical quintessence field and a cosmological constant. Our results confirm the possibility of a collapsing universe (for a given…
Moduli with flat or run-away classical potentials are generic in theories based on supersymmetry and extra dimensions. They mix between themselves and with matter fields in kinetic terms and in the nonperturbative superpotentials. As the…
This article extends bimetric formulations of massive gravity to make the mass of the graviton to depend on its environment. This minimal extension offers a novel way to reconcile massive gravity with local tests of general relativity…
Chameleon mechanism appearing in massive tensor-scalar theory of gravity can effectively reduce locally the non-minimal coupling between the scalar field and matter. This mechanism is invoked to reconcile large-scale departures from general…
Current acceleration of the cosmic expansion leads to coincidence as well as fine-tuning issues in the framework of general relativity. Dynamical scalar fields have been introduced in response of these problems, some of them invoking…
Using a novel and self-consistent approach that avoids the scalar-tensor identification in the Einstein frame, we reanalyze the viability of f(R) gravity within the context of solar-system tests. In order to do so, we depart from a simple…
Recent observations suggest that the accelerated expansion of the Universe at late times is caused by a temporally changing dark energy component, rather than the constant one in the standard $\Lambda$CDM scenario. In this context…
In this brief note we analyse a toy model which can be derived from heterotic string compactifications on half-flat manifolds with SU(3) structure at first order in \alpha' (ie including matter fields). We show that for this model, finding…
A slow-rolling scalar field ($Q\equiv$ Quintessence) with potential energy $V_Q\sim (3\times 10^{-3} {\rm eV})^4$ has been proposed as the origin of accelerating universe at present. We investigate the effective potential of $Q$ in the…
Observational evidence implying the accelerated expansion of the universe has been the motivation to develop various classes of modified gravity theories. One of them uses the so-called "screening mechanism", which is successful in…
The Solar System bounds on R^n gravity are often ignored in the literature by invoking the chameleon mechanism. We show that in order for the latter to work, the exponent n must be ridicolously close to unity and, therefore, these theories…
In this paper, continuing the discussion about Species Quantum Mechanics, we investigate quantum mechanics in moduli spaces using a mini-superspace approach. From this perspective, moduli-dependent functions can be viewed as operators, and…
We investigate the impact of quantum fluctuations on a light rolling quintessence field from three different sources, namely, from a coupling to the standard model and dark matter, from its self-couplings and from its coupling to gravity.…