In negatively curved field spaces, inflation can be realised even in steep potentials. Hyperinflation invokes the `centrifugal force of a field orbiting the hyperbolic plane to sustain inflation. We generalise hyperinflation by showing that it can be
realised in models with any number of fields ($N_fgeq2$), and in broad classes of potentials that, in particular, dont need to be rotationally symmetric. For example, hyperinflation can follow a period of radial slow-roll inflation that undergoes geometric destabilisation, yet this inflationary phase is not identical to the recently proposed scenario of `side-tracked inflation. We furthermore provide a detailed proof of the attractor mechanism of (the original and generalised) hyperinflation, and provide a novel set of characteristic, explicit models. We close by discussing the compatibility of hyperinflation with observations and the recently much discussed `swampland conjectures. Observationally viable models can be realised that satisfy either the `de Sitter conjecture ($V/Vgtrsim 1$) or the `distance conjecture ($Delta phi lesssim 1$), but satisfying both simultaneously brings hyperinflation in some tension with successful reheating after inflation. However, hyperinflation can get much closer to satisfying all of these criteria than standard slow-roll inflation. Furthermore, while the original model is in stark tension with the weak gravity conjecture, generalisations can circumvent this issue.
Warped string compactifications are central to many attempts to stabilize moduli and connect string theory with cosmology and particle phenomenology. We present a first-principles derivation of the low-energy 4D effective theory from dimensional redu
ction of a D3-brane in a warped Calabi-Yau compactification of type IIB string theory with imaginary self-dual 3-form flux, including effects of D3-brane motion beyond the probe approximation, and find the metric on the moduli space of brane positions, the universal volume modulus, and axions descending from the 4-form potential. As D3-branes may be considered as carrying either electric or magnetic charges for the self-dual 5-form field strength, we present calculations in both duality frames. Our results are consistent with, but extend significantly, earlier results on the low-energy effective theory arising from D3-branes in string compactifications.
Axion-like particles (ALPs) and photons inter-convert in the presence of a magnetic field. At keV energies in the environment of galaxy clusters, the conversion probability can become unsuppressed for light ALPs. Conversion of thermal X-ray photons i
nto ALPs can introduce a step-like feature into the cluster thermal bremsstrahlung spectrum, and we argue that existing X-ray data on galaxy clusters should be sufficient to extend bounds on ALPs in the low-mass region $m_a lesssim 1 times 10^{-12},{rm eV}$ down to $M sim 7times 10^{11}, {rm GeV}$, and that for $10^{11}, {rm GeV} < M lesssim 10^{12}$ GeV light ALPs give rise to interesting and unique observational signatures that may be probed by existing and upcoming X-ray (and potentially X-ray polarisation) observations of galaxy clusters.
Galaxy clusters can efficiently convert axion-like particles (ALPs) to photons. We propose that the recently claimed detection of a 3.55--3.57 keV line in the stacked spectra of a large number of galaxy clusters and the Andromeda galaxy may originate
from the decay of either a scalar or fermionic $7.1$ keV dark matter species into an axion-like particle (ALP) of mass $m_{a} lesssim 6cdot 10^{-11}~{rm eV}$, which subsequently converts to a photon in the cluster magnetic field. In contrast to models in which the photon line arises directly from dark matter decay or annihilation, this can explain the anomalous line strength in the Perseus cluster. As axion-photon conversion scales as $B^2$ and cool core clusters have high central magnetic fields, this model can also explains the observed peaking of the line emission in the cool cores of the Perseus, Ophiuchus and Centaurus clusters, as opposed to the much larger dark matter halos. We describe distinctive predictions of this scenario for future observations.
