Beauty is attractive: Moduli trapping at enhanced symmetry points

By Lev Kofman, Andrei Linde, Xiao Liu, A. Maloney, Liam McAllister, E. Silverstein. 2004

311 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We study quantum effects on moduli dynamics arising from the production of particles which are light at points of enhanced symmetry in moduli space. The resulting forces trap the moduli at these points. Moduli trapping occurs in time-dependent quantum field theory, as well as in systems of moving D-branes, where it leads the branes to combine into stacks. Trapping also occurs in the presence of gravity, though the range over which the moduli can roll is limited by Hubble friction. We observe that a scalar field trapped on a steep potential can induce a stage of acceleration of the universe, which we call trapped inflation. Moduli trapping ameliorates the cosmological moduli problem and may affect vacuum selection. In particular, rolling moduli are most powerfully attracted to the points of greatest symmetry. Given suitable assumptions about the dynamics of the very early universe, this effect might help to explain why among the plethora of possible vacuum states of string theory, we appear to live in one with a large number of (spontaneously broken) symmetries.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Nuclear and High Energy Physics, Statistical and Nonlinear Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b307d00b139c0d5f773a824a76615b65fa92c4b7

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Citations in the corpus

Monodromy in the CMB: Gravity Waves and String Inflation (2008, background): “Let us also note that we chose to include a single wrapped D4-brane in the compactification, with potential minimized at u1 = 0, but another mechanism for inflation – “trapped inflation” [35] – suggests itself in this geometry.”
DBI in the sky (2004, background): “As in the related work [5], the inflationary phase here could also arise later in the evolution of the universe, diluting unwanted relics for example; the D-cceleration phases more generally also dynamically leads the theory to get stuck near more symmetric configurations.”
The dS/dS Correspondence (2004, background): “Again, this generalizes the effects studied in [15] and [17] to the thermal case where both a gas of particles and higher derivative corrections play crucial roles.”
Stringy corrections to Kahler potentials, SUSY breaking, and the cosmological constant problem (2004, background): “(For another argument in favor of enhanced symmetry points, see [38].”
String gas cosmology (2005, methodology): “This approach, known as quantum moduli trapping (Kofman et al., 2004; Watson, 2004a), takes the initial theory to contain only the low energy massless modes of the string.”
Landscape, the scale of SUSY breaking, and inflation (2004, background): “This is exactly the situation required for the moduli trapping near the enhanced symmetry points according to [30] (see also [31, 32]).”
Inflation and String Theory (2014, methodology): “86 This section is based mostly on [622,664].”
Inflation and string cosmology (2001, result): “9 is a point of enhanced symmetry, which is a trapping point for the motion of the moduli fields, in accordance with [106].”
The tachyon at the end of the universe (2005, background): “One aspect of the system is pair production of winding modes themselves as they become massless [47]; this can drain energy from the rolling radius to some extent [48].”
Retrofitting O'Raifeartaigh models with dynamical scales (2006, methodology): “s very plausible given the symmetries governing our system [25]. It is under investigation in a similar class of models along the lines of [20] in [26], and may be aﬀected by the process described in [27]. Acknowledgments We fully acknowledge valuable discussions with T. Banks, M. Drees, K. Intrilig”
The String Landscape, the Swampland, and the Missing Corner (2017, background): “For example, what forces four dimensions to be extended and six to be compact? Why did nature choose the specific string background describing our universe from the vast number which can be constructed in the theory? While there have been some suggested ideas [62, 63], there is no compelling solutio”
Towards inflation in string theory (2003, result): “This means that the minimum of the KL potential [74] is a point of enhanced symmetry, which is a trapping point for the motion of the moduli fields, in accordance with [77].”
Trapped Inflation (2009, methodology): “As discussed in [5, 8], at weak coupling particle production dominates over quantum corrections to the effective action for colliding locally maximally supersymmetric branes.”
Non-Thermal Dark Matter and the Moduli Problem in String Frameworks (2008, background): “This naturally arises in SUGRA theories that are derived from string theories, where an underlying knowledge of the UV physics is known [52, 49, 50, 53].”