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Abstract We perform a detailed study of (supersymmetric) moduli stabilisation in type IIB toroidal orientifolds with fluxes. We provide strong evidence towards exhaustion of the finite number of inequivalent vacua for a given total 3-form flux charge N flux. We also find that the minimal value of the string coupling g s is given in terms of N flux and present strong evidence for the asymptotic relation g s, min ∼ c / N flux α $$ c/{N}_{\textrm{flux}}^{\alpha } $$ , with α = 1, 2, valid for not too small N flux, where c is an order 1 coefficient and α depends on the orbifold. Imposing tadpole cancellation, N flux is bounded from the number of orientifold O3-planes. Combined with the flux quantisation, this forbids orientifold vacua without anti-brane charge. On the other hand, the presence of negative D3-brane charge induced by magnetised D7-branes breaks supersymmetry and relaxes the bound, allowing significantly smaller values for g s .

Abstract It was recently proposed that five-dimensional inflation can relate the causal size of the observable universe to the present weakness of gravitational interactions by blowing up an extra compact dimension from the microscopic fundamental length of gravity to a large size in the micron range, as required in the Dark Dimension proposal. Here, we compute the power spectrum of all primordial fluctuations emerging from a 5-dimensional inflaton in a slow-roll region of its potential, showing an interesting change of behaviour at large scales corresponding to angles larger than about 10 degrees in the sky.

Abstract We extend the 2 → 2 gravitino scattering amplitude computed in [1] to an arbitrary N $$ \mathcal{N} $$ = 1 supergravity model of one chiral and one vector multiplet, in a Minkowski background with supersymmetry breaking driven by both F- and D-terms. We find that the cancellation of the leading term in O $$ \mathcal{O} $$ (κ 2 E 4 /|m 3/2 | 2), that would lead to a breakdown of perturbative unitarity at a scale Λ ~ M SUSY, is a consequence of the vanishing of the scalar potential at its minimum, which is implied by the flat background. We then analyse the inclusion of the new Fayet-Iliopoulos (FI) terms. We find that, since they modify the scalar potential without contributing to the amplitudes, they generically lead to uncanceled leading terms in the latter and a perturbative cutoff at the supersymmetry breaking scale, except for particular cases where the new FI term does not modify the potential at its minimum and the cutoff is pushed up to the Planck scale.

Abstract We compute the 2 → 2 gravitino scattering amplitudes at tree level in supergravity theories where supersymmetry is spontaneously broken. In the unitary gauge, the gravitino becomes massive (of mass m 3/2) by absorbing the Goldstino, and the scattering amplitudes of its longitudinal polarisations grow with energy as κ 2 E 4 / m 3 / 2 2 $$ {\kappa}^2{E}^4/{m}_{3/2}^2 $$ , signaling a potential breakdown of unitarity at a scale Λ 2 ∼ m 3 / 2 / κ ∼ M SUSY 2 $$ {\Lambda}^2\sim {m}_{3/2}/\kappa \sim {M}_{\textrm{SUSY}}^2 $$ . As we show explicitly in the Polonyi model, this leading term is cancelled by the contributions coming from the scalar partner of the Goldstino (sgoldstino), restoring perturbative unitarity up to the Planck scale. This is expected since supersymmetry is spontaneously broken, in analogy with the situation occuring in the Standard Model, where massive gauge bosons scattering preserves unitarity at high energy once we consider the contributions from the Higgs boson. However, when supersymmetry is broken by the new Fayet-Iliopoulos D-term, with ungauged R-symmetry, the above cancellation does not occur. In this case, the unbroken phase is singular and there is no contribution able to cancel the quartic divergences of the amplitudes, leading to a cutoff Λ ~ M SUSY where the effective theory breaks down. The same behaviour is obtained when supersymmetry is non-linearly realised.

Abstract We investigate the effect of the quadratic correction αR 2 and non-minimal coupling ξϕ 2 R on a quintessence model with an exponential potential V(ϕ) = M 4exp(−λϕ) in the Palatini formulation of gravity. We use dynamical system techniques to analyze the attractor structure of the model and uncover the possible trajectories of the system. We find that the quadratic correction cannot play a role in the late time dynamics, except for unacceptably large values of the parameter α; although it can play a role at early times. We find viable evolutions, from a matter-dominated phase to an accelerated expansion phase, with the dynamics driven by the non-minimal coupling. These evolutions correspond to trajectories where the field ends up frozen, thus acting as a cosmological constant.

A correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP08(2021)018

Abstract We study the ultraviolet behaviour of Higgs inflation models above the apparent unitarity violation scale arising from the large non minimal coupling to gravity, by computing on-shell 4-point scattering amplitudes in the presence of a large inflaton background, away from the electroweak vacuum. We find that all tree-level amplitudes are well behaved at high energies below the inflaton background that can thus take values up to the Planck scale. This result holds in both the metric and Palatini formulation, and is independent of the frame (Jordan or Einstein) as expected. The same result also holds if an R 2 term is added to the action.