Seminar
Speaker
Irene Valenzuela (CERN, Switzerland)
Date & Time
Wed, 19 October 2022, 15:00 to 16:30
Venue
Online Seminar
Abstract

Quantum gravitational effects can become important at scales much below the Planck scale. This occurs, for instance, when approaching infinite distance boundaries of the field space of string compactifications. These boundaries share some universal properties that are promoted to Swampland constraints (i.e. constraints that any EFT must satisfy to be consistent with quantum gravity), like the presence of an infinite tower of states becoming light asymptotically or a runway behaviour for the scalar potential. I will discuss recent developments on classifying these boundaries and characterizing these properties, both in the context of stringy Calabi-Yau compactifications as well as from the perspective of the CFT conformal manifold when there is an AdS vacuum. This can allow us to answer phenomenologically relevant questions like whether string theory allows for asymptotic accelerated cosmologies at late times, or the possible presence of these light towers of states in our universe.

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Recordings of past talks can be found here: www.youtube.com/channel/UCw9LdPQ5t7Q7muD0qzn70TA