Related papers: Challenges for Superstring Cosmology
A particular compensation-type solution of the main cosmological constant problem has been proposed recently, with two massless vector fields dynamically canceling an arbitrary cosmological constant \Lambda. The naive expectation is that…
Cosmic strings are one-dimensional topological defects which could have been formed in the early stages of our Universe. They triggered a lot of interest, mainly for their cosmological implications: they could offer an alternative to…
Attempts to apply quantum collapse theories to Cosmology and cosmic inflation are reviewed. These attempts are motivated by the fact that the theory of cosmological perturbations of quantum-mechanical origin suffers from the single outcome…
I discuss cosmological models either derived from, or inspired by, string theory or M-theory. In particular I discuss solutions in the low-energy effective theory and the role of the dilaton, moduli and antisymmetric form fields in the…
We revisit phenomenological as well as string-theoretical aspects of D-brane inflation cosmological models. Phenomenologically these models stand out on par with $\alpha$-attractors, as models with Planck-compatible values of $n_s$, moving…
We build a number of integrable one--scalar spatially flat cosmologies, which play a natural role in inflationary scenarios, examine their behavior in several cases and draw from them some general lessons on this type of systems, whose…
We construct a vacuum of string theory in which the magnitude of the vacuum energy is $< 10^{-123}$ in Planck units. Regrettably, the sign of the vacuum energy is negative, and some supersymmetry remains unbroken.
A major challenge at the interface of quantum gravity and cosmology is to explain the emergence of the large-scale structure of the Universe from Planck scale physics. In this letter, we extract the dynamics of scalar isotropic cosmological…
This is a short account, based on a talk given at the 2024 Moriond Cosmology Conference, of where and why string theory matters in early universe cosmology. It is written for a cosmology audience predisposed to be at best sceptical, and at…
We develop methods by which cosmic superstring interactions can be studied in detail. These include the reconnection probability and emission of radiation such as gravitons or small string loops. Loop corrections to these are discussed, as…
We consider inflation in a universe with a positive cosmological constant and a nonminimally coupled scalar field, in which the field couples both quadratically and quartically to the Ricci scalar. When considered in the Einstein frame and…
Variation of the 4-D string cosmology action with dynamical torsion and massless dilatons lead to an expression of torsion in terms of massless dilatons in the case of de Sitter inflation.The solution is approximated according to the COBE…
Following the 2015 Planck release, we briefly comment on the status and some ongoing opportunities in the interface between inflationary cosmology, string theory, and CMB data. The constraints in the $r$-$n_s$ plane introduce a new…
Considerable and ongoing effort is made to identify promising scalar field candidates in string theory to drive a cosmological period of inflation. At stake is the possibility that fundamental string parameters could be encoded in…
We consider a recent proposal to solve the cosmological constant problem within the context of brane world scenarios with infinite volume extra dimensions. In such theories bulk can be supersymmetric even if brane supersymmetry is…
Recently it has been shown that string gas cosmology, an alternative model of the very early universe which does not involve a period of cosmological inflation, can give rise to an almost scale invariant spectrum of metric perturbations.…
The results from Planck2015, when combined with earlier observations from WMAP, ACT, SPT and other experiments, were the first observations to disfavor the "classic" inflationary paradigm. To satisfy the observational constraints,…
One of the greatest problems of standard cosmology is the Big Bang singularity. Previously it has been shown that non-local ghostfree higher-derivative modifications of Einstein gravity in the ultra-violet regime can admit non-singular…
We study cosmological backgrounds from the point of view of the dS/CFT correspondence and its renormalization group flow extension. We focus on the case where gravity is coupled to a single scalar with a potential. Depending on the latter,…
Recently, a number of authors have challenged the conventional assumption that the string scale, Planck mass, and unification scale are roughly comparable. It has been suggested that the string scale could be as low as a TeV. In this note,…