Conjectures on the Swampland

by Dr. (candidate) Eran Palti

Max-Planck Institute For Physics, Munich

at Particles and Fields Seminar

Mon, 04 Mar 2019, 14:00
Sacta-Rashi Building for Physics (54), room 207

Abstract

I will introduce a theoretical program that aims at distinguishing between quantum field theories coupled to gravity which admit a consistent ultraviolet completion and those which do not. The latter are termed to be in the Swampland. I will review a number of conjectured criteria for distinguishing such inconsistent theories, and discuss a proposal that the microscopic physics underlying them is related to emergence. I will focus in particular on the distance conjecture, which is concerned with large variations of scalar field expectation values. I will also discuss a connection between this conjecture and the de Sitter conjecture, which proposes a lower bound on the gradient of positive potentials. Finally, I will discuss constraints on massive spin-2 fields.

Created on 25-02-2019 by Citron, Zvi (zhcitron)
Updaded on 25-02-2019 by Citron, Zvi (zhcitron)