String-Inspired Running Vacuum—The “Vacuumon”—And the Swampland Criteria
We elaborate further on the compatibility of the “vacuumon potential” that characterises the inflationary phase of the running vacuum model (RVM) with the swampland criteria. The work is motivated by the fact that, as demonstrated recently by the authors, the RVM framework can be derived as an effec...
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doaj-d009baffc31243ad9ade35f446fd71112020-11-25T04:09:43ZengMDPI AGUniverse2218-19972020-11-01621821810.3390/universe6110218String-Inspired Running Vacuum—The “Vacuumon”—And the Swampland CriteriaNick E. Mavromatos0Joan Solà Peracaula1Spyros Basilakos2Theoretical Particle Physics and Cosmology Group, Physics Department, King’s College London, Strand, London WC2R 2LS, UKDepartament de Física Quàntica i Astrofísica, and Institute of Cosmos Sciences (ICCUB), Universitat de Barcelona, Av. Diagonal 647, E-08028 Barcelona, Catalonia, SpainAcademy of Athens, Research Center for Astronomy and Applied Mathematics, Soranou Efessiou 4, 11527 Athens, GreeceWe elaborate further on the compatibility of the “vacuumon potential” that characterises the inflationary phase of the running vacuum model (RVM) with the swampland criteria. The work is motivated by the fact that, as demonstrated recently by the authors, the RVM framework can be derived as an effective gravitational field theory stemming from underlying microscopic (critical) string theory models with gravitational anomalies, involving condensation of primordial gravitational waves. Although believed to be a classical scalar field description, not representing a fully fledged quantum field, we show here that the vacuumon potential satisfies certain swampland criteria for the relevant regime of parameters and field range. We link the criteria to the Gibbons–Hawking entropy that has been argued to characterise the RVM during the de Sitter phase. These results imply that the vacuumon may, after all, admit under certain conditions, a rôle as a quantum field during the inflationary (almost de Sitter) phase of the running vacuum. The conventional slow-roll interpretation of this field, however, fails just because it satisfies the swampland criteria. The RVM effective theory derived from the low-energy effective action of string theory does, however, successfully describe inflation thanks to the <inline-formula><math display="inline"><semantics><mrow><mo>∼</mo><msup><mi>H</mi><mn>4</mn></msup></mrow></semantics></math></inline-formula> terms induced by the gravitational anomalous condensates. In addition, the stringy version of the RVM involves the Kalb–Ramond (KR) axion field, which, in contrast to the vacuumon, does perfectly satisfy the slow-roll condition. We conclude that the vacuumon description is not fully equivalent to the stringy formulation of the RVM. Our study provides a particularly interesting example of a successful phenomenological theory beyond the <inline-formula><math display="inline"><semantics><mi>Λ</mi></semantics></math></inline-formula>CDM, such as the RVM, in which the fulfilment of the swampland criteria by the associated scalar field potential, along with its compatibility with (an appropriate form of) the weak gravity conjecture, prove to be insufficient conditions for warranting consistency of the scalar vacuum field representation as a faithful ultraviolet complete representation of the RVM at the quantum gravity level.https://www.mdpi.com/2218-1997/6/11/218cosmologyinflationvacuumstring theory |
collection |
DOAJ |
language |
English |
format |
Article |
sources |
DOAJ |
author |
Nick E. Mavromatos Joan Solà Peracaula Spyros Basilakos |
spellingShingle |
Nick E. Mavromatos Joan Solà Peracaula Spyros Basilakos String-Inspired Running Vacuum—The “Vacuumon”—And the Swampland Criteria Universe cosmology inflation vacuum string theory |
author_facet |
Nick E. Mavromatos Joan Solà Peracaula Spyros Basilakos |
author_sort |
Nick E. Mavromatos |
title |
String-Inspired Running Vacuum—The “Vacuumon”—And the Swampland Criteria |
title_short |
String-Inspired Running Vacuum—The “Vacuumon”—And the Swampland Criteria |
title_full |
String-Inspired Running Vacuum—The “Vacuumon”—And the Swampland Criteria |
title_fullStr |
String-Inspired Running Vacuum—The “Vacuumon”—And the Swampland Criteria |
title_full_unstemmed |
String-Inspired Running Vacuum—The “Vacuumon”—And the Swampland Criteria |
title_sort |
string-inspired running vacuum—the “vacuumon”—and the swampland criteria |
publisher |
MDPI AG |
series |
Universe |
issn |
2218-1997 |
publishDate |
2020-11-01 |
description |
We elaborate further on the compatibility of the “vacuumon potential” that characterises the inflationary phase of the running vacuum model (RVM) with the swampland criteria. The work is motivated by the fact that, as demonstrated recently by the authors, the RVM framework can be derived as an effective gravitational field theory stemming from underlying microscopic (critical) string theory models with gravitational anomalies, involving condensation of primordial gravitational waves. Although believed to be a classical scalar field description, not representing a fully fledged quantum field, we show here that the vacuumon potential satisfies certain swampland criteria for the relevant regime of parameters and field range. We link the criteria to the Gibbons–Hawking entropy that has been argued to characterise the RVM during the de Sitter phase. These results imply that the vacuumon may, after all, admit under certain conditions, a rôle as a quantum field during the inflationary (almost de Sitter) phase of the running vacuum. The conventional slow-roll interpretation of this field, however, fails just because it satisfies the swampland criteria. The RVM effective theory derived from the low-energy effective action of string theory does, however, successfully describe inflation thanks to the <inline-formula><math display="inline"><semantics><mrow><mo>∼</mo><msup><mi>H</mi><mn>4</mn></msup></mrow></semantics></math></inline-formula> terms induced by the gravitational anomalous condensates. In addition, the stringy version of the RVM involves the Kalb–Ramond (KR) axion field, which, in contrast to the vacuumon, does perfectly satisfy the slow-roll condition. We conclude that the vacuumon description is not fully equivalent to the stringy formulation of the RVM. Our study provides a particularly interesting example of a successful phenomenological theory beyond the <inline-formula><math display="inline"><semantics><mi>Λ</mi></semantics></math></inline-formula>CDM, such as the RVM, in which the fulfilment of the swampland criteria by the associated scalar field potential, along with its compatibility with (an appropriate form of) the weak gravity conjecture, prove to be insufficient conditions for warranting consistency of the scalar vacuum field representation as a faithful ultraviolet complete representation of the RVM at the quantum gravity level. |
topic |
cosmology inflation vacuum string theory |
url |
https://www.mdpi.com/2218-1997/6/11/218 |
work_keys_str_mv |
AT nickemavromatos stringinspiredrunningvacuumthevacuumonandtheswamplandcriteria AT joansolaperacaula stringinspiredrunningvacuumthevacuumonandtheswamplandcriteria AT spyrosbasilakos stringinspiredrunningvacuumthevacuumonandtheswamplandcriteria |
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