activity
20122026
most citedHiggs-Dilaton Cosmology: an effective field theory approach

123 citations · 659 across the 33 of their papers we have counts for

collaborators

33 papers

hep-ph2026

A scaling non-compact QCD axion

Georgios K. Karananas, Mikhail Shaposhnikov

We present a dynamical mechanism for the erasure of inflationary isocurvature perturbations of the non-compact QCD axion. The key ingredient is an early-time runaway exponential po…

hep-th2026

QCD axion from broken scale symmetry

Georgios K. Karananas, Mikhail Shaposhnikov

A consistent non-compact axion cosmology requires a non-periodic field, an effective field theory valid sufficiently above the inflationary scale, and a small non-QCD contribution…

hep-th2026

Three-form lifting of dilaton flat direction without and with gravity

Georgios K. Karananas

Spontaneous scale symmetry breaking is commonly associated with a flat direction in the action. We show that this need not be so if the dilaton is coupled to a three-form field in…

hep-ph2025

A non-compact QCD axion

Georgios K. Karananas, Mikhail Shaposhnikov, Sebastian Zell

We investigate the cosmology of an axion that is fundamentally non-compact. During inflation, fluctuations of the effectively massless field populate many QCD vacua, thereby evadin…

hep-ph2025

Higgs inflation in Weyl-invariant Einstein-Cartan gravity

Georgios K. Karananas, Mikhail Shaposhnikov

In this short note we analyze the inflationary dynamics in Weyl-invariant Einstein-Cartan gravity coupled to the Standard Model of particle physics. We take the axion-like particle…

hep-th2025

On the Gravitational Origin of the QCD Axion

Georgios K. Karananas, Mikhail Shaposhnikov, Sebastian Zell

Gravity can give rise to (pseudo)scalar fields, for instance due to torsion. In particular, axions of gravitational origin have been proposed as a minimal and compelling solution t…

hep-th2025

The particle spectra of parity-violating theories: A less radical approach and an upgrade of PSALTer

Will Barker, Georgios K. Karananas, Haochen Tu

Due to computational barriers, the effects of parity violation have so far been grossly neglected in gravitational model-building, leading to a serious gap in the space of prior mo…

gr-qc2025

Geometrical origin of inflation in Weyl-invariant Einstein-Cartan gravity

Georgios K. Karananas

It is shown that the scalar degree of freedom built-in in the quadratic Weyl-invariant Einstein-Cartan gravity can drive inflation and with predictions in excellent agreement with…

hep-th2024★ 1 cited

The particle content of (scalar curvature) metric-affine gravity

Georgios K. Karananas

Linearizing metric-affine~(scalar curvature) gravity -- an ``umbrella'' theory that includes as special cases the metrical, Einstein-Cartan, and Weyl quadratic models -- on top…

hep-th2024

The particle content of gravity revisited

Georgios K. Karananas

Studying the spectrum of (pure) gravity on Minkowski background inevitably results into a Catch-22: any consistent interpretation of its particle dynamics dictates that no ac…

hep-th2024

Weyl-invariant Einstein-Cartan gravity: unifying the strong CP and hierarchy puzzles

Georgios K. Karananas, Mikhail Shaposhnikov, Sebastian Zell

We show that the minimal Weyl-invariant Einstein-Cartan gravity in combination with the Standard Model of particle physics contains just one extra scalar degree of freedom (in addi…

gr-qc2023

The geometry of inflationary observables: lifts, flows, equivalence classes

Georgios K. Karananas, Marco Michel, Javier Rubio

The Eisenhart lift allows to formulate the dynamics of a scalar field in a potential as pure geodesic motion in a curved field-space manifold involving an additional fictitious vec…

hep-th2023

Scale invariant Einstein-Cartan gravity and flat space conformal symmetry

Georgios K. Karananas, Mikhail Shaposhnikov, Sebastian Zell

We find the conditions under which scale-invariant Einstein-Cartan gravity with scalar matter fields leads to an approximate conformal invariance of the flat space particle theory…

hep-ph2022★ 30 cited

Field redefinitions, perturbative unitarity and Higgs inflation

Georgios K. Karananas, Mikhail Shaposhnikov, Sebastian Zell

For inflation driven by the Higgs field coupled non-minimally to gravity, we study the cutoff energy scale above which perturbation theory breaks down. Employing the metric formula…

hep-th2021★ 10 cited

More on the operator-state map in non-relativistic CFTs

Georgios K. Karananas, Alexander Monin

We propose an algebraic construction of the operator-state correspondence in non-relativistic conformal field theories by explicitly constructing an automorphism of the Schrödinger…

hep-th2021★ 31 cited

Scale and Weyl Invariance in Einstein-Cartan Gravity

Georgios K. Karananas, Mikhail Shaposhnikov, Andrey Shkerin +1

We show how Einstein-Cartan gravity can accommodate both global scale and local scale (Weyl) invariance. To this end, we construct a wide class of models with nonpropagaing torsion…

hep-th2021★ 42 cited

Matter matters in Einstein-Cartan gravity

Georgios K. Karananas, Mikhail Shaposhnikov, Andrey Shkerin +1

We study scalar, fermionic and gauge fields coupled nonminimally to gravity in the Einstein-Cartan formulation. We construct a wide class of models with nondynamical torsion whose…

hep-th2021★ 58 cited

Islands in Linear Dilaton Black Holes

Georgios K. Karananas, Alex Kehagias, John Taskas

We derive a novel four-dimensional black hole with planar horizon that asymptotes to the linear dilaton background. The usual growth of its entanglement entropy before Page's time…

hep-th2020

Aspects of spontaneous breaking of conformal invariance in the Fishnet CFT

Georgios K. Karananas

I will discuss spontaneous conformal symmetry breaking in the strongly -deformed limit of the supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory known as~\emph{Fishnet Conformal Fi…

hep-th2019★ 21 cited

Spontaneous Conformal Symmetry Breaking in Fishnet CFT

Georgios K. Karananas, Vladimir Kazakov, Mikhail Shaposhnikov

Quantum field theories with exact but spontaneously broken conformal invariance have an intriguing feature: their vacuum energy (cosmological constant) is equal to zero. Up to now,…

astro-ph.CO2018★ 30 cited

Scale-invariant alternatives to general relativity. III. The inflation--dark-energy connection

Santiago Casas, Georgios K. Karananas, Martin Pauly +1

We discuss the cosmological phenomenology of biscalar-tensor models displaying a maximally symmetric Einstein-frame kinetic sector and constructed on the basis of scale symmetry an…

hep-th2018★ 11 cited

On the strong-CP problem and its axion solution in torsionful theories

Georgios K. Karananas

Gravitational effects may interfere with the axion solution to the strong-CP problem. We point out that gravity can potentially provide a protection mechanism against itself, in th…

hep-ph2018★ 23 cited

Small-scale structure from neutron dark decay

Georgios K. Karananas, Alexis Kassiteridis

It was recently proposed that the disagreement in the experimental measurements of the lifetime of the neutron might be eradicated if the neutron decays to particles responsible fo…

hep-th2017★ 19 cited

CFT data and spontaneously broken conformal invariance

Georgios K. Karananas, Mikhail Shaposhnikov

We derive consistency conditions for the CFT data, which systems with exact but spontaneously broken conformal invariance must satisfy.