Inflationary Constraints on String Theory

          @misc{ scivideos_PIRSA:08060185,
            doi = {10.48660/08060185},
            url = {https://pirsa.org/08060185},
            author = {Hertzberg, Mark},
            keywords = {Quantum Fields and Strings, Particle Physics, Cosmology},
            language = {en},
            title = {Inflationary Constraints on String Theory},
            publisher = {Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics},
            year = {2008},
            month = {jun},
            note = {PIRSA:08060185 see, \url{https://scivideos.org/pirsa/08060185}}
          }
          

Abstract

It is an important task to embed inflation in a fundamental microphysical theory such as string theory. Since string theory possesses a vast landscape of 4-dimensional theories, we would like to know which portions contain inflation and which do not. I prove a no-go theorem that inflation and de Sitter vacua are forbidden in an exponentially large number of infinite families of simple and well understood compactifications of type IIA string theory. I also mention more complicated and less well understood compactifications, which may have the ingredients for our cosmology.