Dark energy beyond quintessence: constraints from the swampland

• Published in: The journal of high energy physics Vol. 2019; no. 6; pp. 1 - 17
• Main Authors: Brahma, Suddhasattwa, Hossain, Md. Wali
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01.06.2019; Springer Nature B.V; SpringerOpen
• Subjects: Classical and Quantum Gravitation; Classical Theories of Gravity; Cosmology; Cosmology of Theories beyond the SM; Dark energy; Effective Field Theories; Elementary Particles; Field theory; High energy physics; Physics; Physics and Astronomy; Quantum Field Theories; Quantum Field Theory; Quantum Physics; Quintessence (cosmology); Regular Article - Theoretical Physics; Relativity Theory; String Theory; Classical Theories of Gravity; Effective Field Theories; Cosmology of Theories beyond the SM
• ISSN: 1029-8479; 1029-8479
• DOI: 10.1007/JHEP06(2019)070

A bstract The string theory swampland proposes that there is no UV-completion for an effective field theory with an exact (metastable) de Sitter vacua, thereby ruling out standard ΛCDM cosmology if the conjecture is taken seriously. The swampland criteria have also been shown to be in sharp tension with quintessence models under current and forthcoming observational bounds. As a logical next step, we introduce higher derivative self-interactions in the low-energy effective Lagrangian and show that one can satisfy observational constraints as well as the swampland criteria for some specific models. In particular, the cubic Galileon term, in the presence of an exponential potential, is examined to demonstrate that parts of the Horndeski parameter space survives the swampland and leads to viable cosmological histories.