Natural Inflation and Quantum Gravity

Abstract

Cosmic Inflation provides an attractive framework for understanding the early universe and the cosmic microwave background. It can readily involve energies close to the scale at which Quantum Gravity effects become important. General considerations of black hole quantum mechanics suggest nontrivial constraints on any effective field theory model of inflation that emerges as a low-energy limit of quantum gravity, in particular the constraint of the Weak Gravity Conjecture. We show that higher-dimensional gauge and gravitational dynamics can elegantly satisfy these constraints and lead to a viable, theoretically-controlled and predictive class of Natural Inflation models.

References added; minor changes and corrections

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• Euclidean wormholes, baby universes, and their impact on particle physics and cosmology
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• Quantum Gravity Constraints from Unitarity and Analyticity
• Opening up the QCD axion window
• Repulsive Forces and the Weak Gravity Conjecture
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• Modular Fluxes, Elliptic Genera, and Weak Gravity Conjectures in Four Dimensions
• A Holographic Derivation of the Weak Gravity Conjecture
• The Weak Gravity Conjecture and Effective Field Theory
• Cosmological Collider Physics and the Curvaton
• Experimental Targets for Photon Couplings of the QCD Axion
• The ALP miracle revisited
• Gaugino condensation and small uplifts in KKLT
• Backreaction Issues in Axion Monodromy and Minkowski 4-forms
• Constraining Neutrino Masses, the Cosmological Constant and BSM Physics from the Weak Gravity Conjecture
• Sharpening the Distance Conjecture in Diverse Dimensions
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• Axion Monodromy and the Weak Gravity Conjecture
• Generalized Symmetry Breaking Scales and Weak Gravity Conjectures
• Warping the Weak Gravity Conjecture
• Flat Monodromies and a Moduli Space Size Conjecture
• Modulated Natural Inflation
• Conditions for (No) Eternal Inflation
• Clockwork Axions in Cosmology: Is Chromonatural Inflation Chrononatural?
• Can Gravitational Instantons Really Constrain Axion Inflation?
• Disassembling the Clockwork Mechanism
• Weak Gravity Conjecture, Multiple Point Principle and the Standard Model Landscape
• The Convex Hull Swampland Distance Conjecture and Bounds on Non-geodesics
• Natural Heavy Supersymmetry
• Modular Symmetries and the Swampland Conjectures
• Dynamics of Relaxed Inflation
• Complexity is Simple
• A Strong Scalar Weak Gravity Conjecture and Some Implications
• The Weak Gravity Conjecture and the Axionic Black Hole Paradox
• A Chern-Simons Pandemic
• A Note on the WGC, Effective Field Theory and Clockwork within String Theory
• What is the Magnetic Weak Gravity Conjecture for Axions?
• Duality and Axionic Weak Gravity
• Oscillating Chiral Tensor Spectrum from Axionic Inflation
• An Axion-induced SM/MSSM Higgs Landscape and the Weak Gravity Conjecture
• Infinite Distances and the Axion Weak Gravity Conjecture
• Trajectories with suppressed tensor-to-scalar ratio in Aligned Natural Inflation
• Transplanckian Censorship and Global Cosmic Strings
• The $F$-term Problem and other Challenges of Stringy Quintessence
• Towards Axion Monodromy Inflation with Warped KK-Modes
• Clockwork Inflation
• Axion Mass from Magnetic Monopole Loops
• Towards a Swampland Global Symmetry Conjecture using Weak Gravity
• Aligned natural inflation with modulations
• The Fundamental Need for a SM Higgs and the Weak Gravity Conjecture
• Tachyon Inflation in Teleparallel Gravity
• Naturalizing Supersymmetry with a Two-Field Relaxion Mechanism
• The present and future of the most favoured inflationary models after $Planck$ 2015
• Thraxions: Ultralight Throat Axions
• Relaxation of the Composite Higgs Little Hierarchy
• AdS-phobia, the WGC, the Standard Model and Supersymmetry
• Large Field Ranges from Aligned and Misaligned Winding
• High-Scale Axions without Isocurvature from Inflationary Dynamics
• Revisiting the Scalar Weak Gravity Conjecture
• Flux Flattening in Axion Monodromy Inflation
• A Conjecture on the Minimal Size of Bound States
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• Large Field Inflation and Gravitational Entropy
• Are tiny gauge couplings out of the Swampland?
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• A Note on 4D Heterotic String Vacua, FI-terms and the Swampland
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