Published April 18, 2019 | Version v1
Journal article Open

Swampland conjectures and late-time cosmology

  • 1. University of Chicago

Description

We discuss the cosmological implications of the string swampland conjectures for late-time cosmology, and test them against a wide range of state of the art cosmological observations. The refined de Sitter conjecture constrains either the minimal slope or the curvature of the scalar potential, and depends on two dimensionless constants. For constants of size one or larger, tension exists between observations, especially the Hubble constant, and the slope and curvature conjectures at a level of $4.5σ$ and $2.3σ$, respectively. Smaller values of the constants are permitted by observations, and we determine upper bounds at varying confidence levels. We also derive and constrain the relationship between cosmological observables and the scalar field excursion during the acceleration epoch, thereby testing the distance conjecture.

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PhysRevD.99.083518.pdf

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Additional details

Identifiers

DOI
10.1103/PhysRevD.99.083518
Other
oai:uchicago.tind.io:12202

Funding

U.S. Department of Energy
DE-FG02-13ER41958
National Science Foundation
PHY-1316960
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
NNX15AK22G

UChicago Information

Division(s)
Physical Sciences Division
Department(s)
Astronomy and Astrophysics, Enrico Fermi Institute, Kadanoff Center for Theoretical Physics
Center(s) or Institute(s)
Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics