The one-loop vacuum energy is explicitly computed for a class of perturbative string vacua where supersymmetry is spontaneously broken by a T-duality invariant asymmetric Scherk-Schwarz deformation. The low-lying spectrum is tachyon-free for any value of the compactification radii and thus no Hagedorn-like phase-transition takes place. Indeed, the induced effective potential is free of divergence, and has a global anti de Sitter minimum where geometric moduli are naturally stabilised.
Fluxbrane inflation is a stringy version of D-term inflation in which two fluxed D7-branes move towards each other until their (relative) gauge flux annihilates. Compared to brane-antibrane inflation, the leading-order inflationary potential of this scenario is much flatter. In the present paper we first discuss a new explicit moduli stabilisation procedure combining the F- and D-term scalar potentials: It is based on fluxed D7-branes in a geometry with three large four-cycles of hierarchically different volumes. Subsequently, we combine this moduli stabilisation with the fluxbrane inflation idea, demonstrating in particular that CMB data (including cosmic string constraints) can be explained within our setup of hierarchical large volume CY compactifications. We also indicate how the eta-problem is expected to re-emerge through higher-order corrections and how it might be overcome by further refinements of our model. Finally, we explain why recently raised concerns about constant FI terms do not affect the consistent, string-derived variant of D-term inflation discussed in this paper.
We present a model of inflation based on a racetrack model without flux stabilization. The initial conditions are set automatically through topological inflation. This ensures that the dilaton is not swept to weak coupling through either thermal effects or fast roll. Including the effect of non-dilaton fields we find that moduli provide natural candidates for the inflaton. The resulting potential generates slow-roll inflation without the need to fine tune parameters. The energy scale of inflation must be near the GUT scale and the scalar density perturbation generated has a spectrum consistent with WMAP data.
Inflation and moduli stabilisation mechanisms work well independently, and many string-motivated supergravity models have been proposed for them. However a complete theory will contain both, and there will be (gravitational) interactions between the two sectors. These give corrections to the inflaton potential, which generically ruin inflation. This holds true even for fine-tuned moduli stabilisation schemes. Following a suggestion by 0712.3460, we show that a viable combined model can be obtained if it is the Kahler functions (G= K+ln |W|^2) of the two sectors that are added, rather than the superpotentials (as is usually done). Interaction between the two sectors does still impose some restrictions on the moduli stabilisation mechanism, which are derived. Significantly, we find that the (post-inflation) moduli stabilisation scale no longer needs to be above the inflationary energy scale.
We study the cosmological properties of a metastable de Sitter vacuum obtained recently in the framework of type IIB flux compactifications in the presence of three D7-brane stacks, based on perturbative quantum corrections at both world-sheet and string loop level that are dominant at large volume and weak coupling. In the simplest case, the model has one effective parameter controlling the shape of the potential of the inflaton which is identified with the volume modulus. The model provides a phenomenological successful small-field inflation for a value of the parameter that makes the minimum very shallow and near the maximum. The horizon exit is close to the inflection point while most of the required e-folds of the Universe expansion are generated near the minimum, with a prediction for the ratio of tensor-to-scalar primordial fluctuations $r sim 4 times 10^{-4}$. Despite its shallowness, the minimum turns out to be practically stable. We show that it can decay only through the Hawking-Moss instanton leading to an extremely long decay rate. Obviously, in order to end inflation and obtain a realistic model, new low-energy physics is needed around the minimum, at intermediate energy scales of order $10^{12}$ GeV. An attractive possibility is by introducing a waterfall field within the framework of hybrid inflation.
We study string loop corrections to the gravity kinetic terms in type IIB compactifications on Calabi-Yau threefolds or their orbifold limits, in the presence of $D7$-branes and orientifold planes. We show that they exhibit in general a logarithmic behaviour in the large volume limit transverse to the $D7$-branes, induced by a localised four-dimensional Einstein-Hilbert action that appears at a lower order in the closed string sector, found in the past. Here, we compute the coefficient of the logarithmic corrections and use them to provide an explicit realisation of a mechanism for Kahler moduli stabilisation that we have proposed recently, which does not rely on non-perturbative effects and lead to de Sitter vacua. Our result avoids no-go theorems of perturbative stabilisation due to runaway potentials, in a way similar to the Coleman-Weinberg mechanism, and provides a counter example to one of the swampland conjectures concerning de Sitter vacua in quantum gravity, once string loop effects are taken into account; it thus paves the way for embedding the Standard Model of particle physics and cosmology in string theory.