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ST&FI


String Theory and Fundamental Interactions

String Phenomenology and Cosmology
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The research activity of our team is focused on the low-energy implications of string theory for particle physics, cosmology and astrophysics. In particular we study the low-energy four-dimensional limit of string compactifications with branes, orientifolds and fluxes. These are also characterised by the presence of moduli which mediate fifth-forces and determine, via their vacuum expectation values, the features of the effective low-energy theory. In order to avoid phenomenological problems and make predictions, the moduli have to become massive via moduli stabilisation. The dynamics underlying moduli stabilisation controls also crucial phenomenological features like supersymmetry breaking, the spectrum of soft terms, the vacuum energy and inflation. A viable string compactification should reproduce what we already know about both particle physics (the Standard Model with possible supersymmetric or GUT generalisations thereof) and cosmology (inflation, reheating, dark matter, matter-antimatter asymmetry and dark energy). The long-term plan of our team is to build a complete model where moduli stabilisation and a phenomenologically viable model building are performed simultaneously within the framework of Calabi-Yau flux compactifications.

Links

Events
Workshop on "Post-Inflationary String Cosmology"
18-21 September 2017
 Department of Physics and Astronomy, Bologna
Website and registration information

RESEARCH

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Calabi-Yau Models

- Global embedding of chiral D-brane models in consistent Calabi-Yau orientifolds
- Closed and open string moduli stabilisation
- Explicit chiral Calabi-Yau examples for inflation
- Effective 4D supergravity action
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Applications to Cosmology

-String Inflationary Scenarios
-Large Tensor Modes
- Non-gaussianities in String Cosmology
- Reheating
- Baryogenesis from Strings
- Dark Energy and dS Vacua
- Primordial Black Holes
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Applications to Particle Physics

- Supersymmetry Breaking and Spectra of Superpartners
- Stringy Axions and Dark Radiation
- Non-thermal WIMP Dark Matter
- Hidden Photons
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