We study the problem of false vacuum decay in arbitrary dimensions, in the presence of gravity, and compute the transition probability within the thin-wall approximation, generalising the results of Coleman and de Luccia. In the particular case of one compact dimension, we present explicit formulae for the Euclidean Bounce configuration that drives the transition from a de Sitter to Minkowski or from a Minkowski to anti-de Sitter vacua.
We extend a recently proposed framework, dubbed inflation by supersymmetry breaking, to hybrid inflation by introducing a waterfall field that allows to decouple the supersymmetry breaking scale in the observable sector from the inflation scale, while keeping intact the inflation sector and its successful predictions: naturally small slow-roll parameters, small field initial conditions and absence of the pseudo-scalar companion of the inflaton, in terms of one free parameter which is the first order correction to the inflaton Kähler potential. During inflation, supersymmetry is spontaneously broken with the inflaton being the superpartner of the goldstino, together with a massive vector that gauges the R-symmetry. Inflation arises around the maximum of the scalar potential at the origin where R-symmetry is unbroken. Moreover, a nearby minimum with tuneable vacuum energy can be accommodated by introducing a second order correction to the Kähler potential. The inflaton sector can also play the role of the supersymmetry breaking 'hidden' sector when coupled to the (supersymmetric) Standard Model, predicting a superheavy superparticle spectrum near the inflation scale. Here we show that the introduction of a waterfall field provides a natural way to end inflation and allows for a scale separation between supersymmetry breaking and inflation. Moreover, the study of the global vacuum describing low energy Standard Model physics can be done in a perturbative way within a region of the parameter space of the model.
We study reheating after the end of inflation in models where the inflaton is the superpartner of goldstino and is charged under a gauged $U(1)$ R-symmetry. We consider two classes of models -- one is small field characterized by an almost flat Kähler space, and the other large field characterized by a hyperbolic Kähler space $SU(1,1)/U(1)$, while in both cases the inflaton superpotential is linear due to the R-symmetry. The inflationary observables of our models fit within 2$\sigma$ CMB values. Upon coupling the inflaton sector to the (supersymmetric) Standard Model, we compute the MSSM parameters, mass spectrum, and decay modes of the inflaton, with the resulting reheating temperature around $10^8$ GeV. We also find that both models can accommodate superheavy LSP dark matter, depending on the parameter choice.
We study wavefunctions of heavy scalars on de Sitter spacetime and their implications to dS/CFT correspondence. In contrast to light fields in the complementary series, heavy fields in the principal series oscillate outside the cosmological horizon. As a consequence, the quadratic term in the wavefunction does not follow a simple scaling and so it is hard to identify it with a conformal two-point function. In this paper, we demonstrate that it should be interpreted as a two-point function on a cyclic RG flow which is obtained by double-trace deformations of the dual CFT. This is analogous to the situation in nonrelativistic AdS/CFT with a bulk scalar whose mass squared is below the Breitenlohner-Freedman (BF) bound. We also provide a new dS/CFT dictionary relating de Sitter two-point functions and conformal two-point functions in the would-be dual CFT.
We construct new models of inflation and spontaneous supersymmetry breaking in de Sitter vacuum, with a single chiral superfield, where inflaton is the superpartner of the goldstino. Our approach is based on hyperbolic Kähler geometry, and a gauged (non-axionic) $U(1)_R$ symmetry rotating the chiral scalar field by a phase. The $U(1)_R$ gauge field combines with the angular component of the chiral scalar to form a massive vector, and single-field inflation is driven by the radial part of the scalar. We find that in a certain parameter range they can be approximated by simplest Starobinsky-like (E-model) $\alpha$-attractors, thus predicting $n_s$ and $r$ within $1\sigma$ CMB constraints. Supersymmetry (and $R$-symmetry) is broken at a high scale with the gravitino mass $m_{3/2}\gtrsim 10^{14}$ GeV, and the fermionic sector also includes a heavy spin-$1/2$ field. In all the considered cases the inflaton is the lightest field of the model.
We show that initial conditions for small-field inflation can be determined quantum mechanically by introducing a suitable flattened region in the scalar potential. The inflaton is then driven towards the slow-roll attractor solution exponentially fast, desensitising inflation from the initial velocity and partially evading the so-called overshoot problem. We give an explicit example in the context of hilltop inflation by introducing an ultra slow-roll plateau around the maximum of the potential and analyse its effect on the phase-space trajectories.
We have proposed recently a framework for inflation driven by supersymmetry breaking with the inflaton being a superpartner of the goldstino, that avoids the main problems of supergravity inflation, allowing for: naturally small slow-roll parameters, small field initial conditions, absence of a (pseudo)scalar companion of the inflation, and a nearby minimum with tuneable cosmological constant. It contains a chiral multiplet charged under a gauged R-symmetry which is restored at the maximum of the scalar potential with a plateau where inflation takes place. The effective field theory relies on two phenomenological parameters corresponding to corrections to the Kähler potential up to second order around the origin. The first guarantees the maximum at the origin and the second allows the tuning of the vacuum energy between the F- and D-term contributions. Here, we provide a microscopic model leading to the required effective theory. It is a Fayet-Iliopoulos model with two charged chiral multiplets under a second U(1) R-symmetry coupled to supergravity. In the Brout-Englert-Higgs phase of this U(1), the gauge field becomes massive and can be integrated out in the limit of small supersymmetry breaking scale. In this work, we perform this integration and we show that there is a region of parameter space where the effective supergravity realises our proposal of small field inflation from supersymmetry breaking consistently with observations and with a minimum of tuneable energy that can describe the present phase of our Universe.
We study spontaneous gauge symmetry breaking and the Higgs mechanism in nonlocal field theories. Motivated by the level truncated action of string field theory, we consider a class of nonlocal field theories with an exponential factor of the d'Alembertian attached to the kinetic and mass terms. Modifications of this kind are known to make mild the UV behavior of loop diagrams and thus have been studied not only in the context of string theory but also as an alternative approach to quantum gravity. In this paper we argue that such a nonlocal theory potentially includes a ghost mode near the nonlocal scale in the particle spectrum of the symmetry broken phase. This is in sharp contrast to local field theories and would be an obstruction to making a simple nonlocal model a UV complete theory. We then discuss a possible way out by studying nonlocal theories with extra symmetries such as gauge symmetries in higher spacetime dimensions.
We propose a supersymmetrisation of the cosmological constant in ordinary $N=1$ supergravity that breaks supersymmetry spontaneously by a constant Fayet-Iliopoulos (FI) term associated to a $U(1)$ symmetry. This term is a variation of a new gauge invariant FI term proposed recently, which is invariant under Kähler transformations and can be written even for a gauged R-symmetry on top of the standard FI contribution. The two terms are the same in the absence of matter but differ in its presence. The proposed term is reduced to a constant FI-term up to fermion interactions that disappear in the unitary gauge in the absence of any F-term supersymmetry breaking. The constant FI term leads to a positive cosmological constant, uplifting the vacuum energy from the usual anti-de Sitter supergravity to any higher value.
We analyse the consequences of a new gauge invariant Fayet-Iliopoulos (FI) term proposed recently to a class of inflation models driven by supersymmetry breaking with the inflaton being the superpartner of the goldstino. We first show that charged matter fields can be consistently added with the new term, as well as the standard FI term in supergravity in a Kähler frame where the $U(1)$ is not an R-symmetry. We then show that the slow-roll conditions can be easily satisfied with inflation driven by a D-term depending on the two FI parameters. Inflation starts at initial conditions around the maximum of the potential where the $U(1)$ symmetry is restored and stops when the inflaton rolls down to the minimum describing the present phase of our Universe. The resulting tensor-to-scalar ratio of primordial perturbations can be even at observable values in the presence of higher order terms in the Kähler potential.
We explore the possibility that inflation is driven by supersymmetry breaking with the superpartner of the goldstino (sgoldstino) playing the role of the inflaton. Moreover, we impose an R-symmetry that allows to satisfy easily the slow-roll conditions, avoiding the so-called $\eta$-problem, and leads to two different classes of small field inflation models; they are characterised by an inflationary plateau around the maximum of the scalar potential, where R-symmetry is either restored or spontaneously broken, with the inflaton rolling down to a minimum describing the present phase of our Universe. To avoid the Goldstone boson and remain with a single (real) scalar field (the inflaton), R-symmetry is gauged with the corresponding gauge boson becoming massive. This framework generalises a model studied recently by the present authors, with the inflaton identified by the string dilaton and R-symmetry together with supersymmetry restored at weak coupling, at infinity of the dilaton potential. The presence of the D-term allows a tuning of the vacuum energy at the minimum. The proposed models agree with cosmological observations and predict a tensor-to-scalar ratio of primordial perturbations $10^{-9}\lesssim r\lesssim 10^{-4}$ and an inflation scale $10^{10}$ GeV $\lesssim H_*\lesssim 10^{12}$ GeV. $H_*$ may be lowered up to electroweak energies only at the expense of fine-tuning the scalar potential.
We study the cosmology of a recent model of supersymmetry breaking, in the presence of a tuneable positive cosmological constant, based on a gauged shift symmetry of a string modulus that can be identified with the string dilaton. The minimal spectrum of the `hidden' supersymmetry breaking sector consists then of a vector multiplet that gauges the shift symmetry of the dilaton multiplet and when coupled to the MSSM leads to a distinct low energy phenomenology depending on one parameter. Here we study the question if this model can also lead to inflation by identifying the dilaton with the inflaton. We find that this is possible if the Kähler potential is modified by a term that has the form of NS5-brane instantons, leading to an appropriate inflationary plateau around the maximum of the scalar potential, depending on two extra parameters. This model is consistent with present cosmological observations without modifying the low energy particle phenomenology associated to the minimum of the scalar potential.
Till date, the only consistent description of the deconfinement phase of the Sakai-Sugimoto model appears to be provided by the analysis of [1] (arXiv:1107.4048). The current version of the analysis, however, has a subtlety regarding the monodromy of quarks around the Euclidean time circle. In this note, we revisit and resolve this issue by considering the effect of an imaginary baryon chemical potential on quark monodromies. With this ingredient, the proposal of [1] for investigating finite temperature QCD using holography is firmly established. Additionally, our technique allows a holographic computation of the free energy as a function of the imaginary chemical potential in the deconfinement phase; we show that our result agrees with the corresponding formula obtained from perturbative QCD, namely the Roberge-Weiss potential.
Braneshop, and
the US National Science Foundation.
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