arXiv subjects

Susha Parameswaran

Publications and source records attributed to Susha Parameswaran.

22 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2016

Subleading Effects and the Field Range in Axion Inflation

An attractive candidate for the inflaton is an axion slowly rolling down a flat potential protected by a perturbative shift symmetry. Realisations of this idea within large field, natural and monomial inflation have been disfavoured by observations and are difficult to embed in string theory. We show that subleading, but significant non-perturbative corrections can superimpose sharp cliffs and gentle plateaus into the potential, whose overall effect is to enhance the number of e-folds of inflation. Sufficient e-folds are therefore achieved for smaller field ranges compared to the potential without such corrections. Thus, both single-field natural and monomial inflation in UV complete theories like string theory, can be restored into the favour of current observations, with distinctive signatures. Tensor modes result un-observably small, but there is a large negative running of the spectral index. Remarkably, natural inflation can be achieved with a single field whose axion decay constant is sub-Planckian.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2015

Warping the Weak Gravity Conjecture

The Weak Gravity Conjecture, if valid, rules out simple models of Natural Inflation by restricting their axion decay constant to be sub-Planckian. We revisit stringy attempts to realise Natural Inflation, with a single open string axionic inflaton from D-branes in a warped throat. We show that warping allows the requisite super-Planckian axion decay constant to be achieved consistently with the Weak Gravity Conjecture. However, there is a tension between large axion decay constant and high string scale, where the requisite high string scale is difficult to achieve in all attempts to realise large field inflation using perturbative string theory. We comment on the Generalized Weak Gravity Conjecture in the light of our results.

hep-th↗

arXiv2015

Wilson lines and Chern-Simons flux in explicit heterotic Calabi-Yau compactifications

We study to what extent Wilson lines in heterotic Calabi-Yau compactifications lead to non-trivial H-flux via Chern-Simons terms. Wilson lines are basic ingredients for Standard Model constructions but their induced H-flux may affect the consistency of the leading order background geometry and of the two-dimensional worldsheet theory. Moreover H-flux in heterotic compactifications would play an important role for moduli stabilization and could strongly constrain the supersymmetry breaking scale. We show how to compute H-flux and the corresponding superpotential, given an explicit complete intersection Calabi-Yau compactification and choice of Wilson lines. We do so by classifying special Lagrangian submanifolds in the Calabi-Yau, understanding how the Wilson lines project onto these submanifolds, and computing their Chern-Simons invariants. We illustrate our procedure with the quintic hypersurface as well as the split-bicubic, which can provide a potentially realistic three generation model.

hep-th↗

arXiv2012

Lifshitz black holes in IIA supergravity

We compute string theoretic black hole solutions having Lifshitz asymptotics with a general dynamical exponent z>1. We start by constructing solutions in a flux compactification of six dimensional supergravity, then uplift them to massive type IIA supergravity. Alongside the Lifshitz black holes we study the simpler anti-de Sitter solutions, of which there are a 1-parameter family in this supergravity, and compare and contrast their properties. The black holes are characterized by a two-form and scalar charge, and we numerically explore their configuration space and thermodynamical aspects.

hep-th↗