Metastable de Sitter Solutions in 2-dimensions

To obtain stable de Sitter solutions in string theory that also avoid the Swampland is no easy task. It is difficult for many reasons. To give one example, from 10-dimensional Type IIA* and Type IIB* theories, one finds de Sitter related solutions but they come with ghosts that give a negative cosmological constant. Full de …

Notes on the Swampland (4): The Distance Conjecture for Arbitrary Calabi-Yau Manifolds, the Emergence Proposal, and the de Sitter Conjecture

The following collection of notes is based on a series of lectures that I attended by Eran Palti at SiftS 2019 at Universidad Autonoma de Madrid. The theme of the lecture series was ‘String Theory and the Swampland’. Palti’s five lectures were supported by his most recent and impressive 200 page review paper on the …

Navigating the Swampland (25-27 Sept)

There is an intriguing Swampland workshop set to take place this week. The event has been given the title, 'Navigating the Swampland', and it will be held at UAM / IFT beginning tomorrow (25 September) and running through to Friday afternoon. For the interested reader, a stream of all the talks should be made available …

Notes on the Swampland (3): Testing the Weak Gravity Conjecture – Gauge Fields, Dp-branes, Type II Strings, and F-Theory-Heterotic Duality

The following collection of notes is based on a series of lectures that I attended by Eran Palti at SiftS 2019 at Universidad Autonoma de Madrid. The theme of the lecture series was ‘String Theory and the Swampland’. Palti’s five lectures were supported by his most recent and impressive 200 page review paper on the …

Notes on the Swampland (2): Weak Gravity Conjecture, Distance Conjecture, and the Parameter Space of M-theory

The following collection of notes is based on a series of lectures that I attended by Eran Palti at SiftS 2019 at Universidad Autonoma de Madrid. The theme of the lecture series was 'String Theory and the Swampland'. Palti's five lectures were supported by his most recent and impressive 200 page review paper on the …

Notes on the Swampland (1): Constraining Effective Field Theories

1. Introduction This is the first of a collection of several notes based on a series of lectures that I attended by Eran Palti at SiftS 2019. The theme of the lecture series was 'String Theory and the Swampland'. Palti's five lectures were supported by his most recent and impressive 200 page review paper on …

SiftS 2019

SiftS 2019 concluded on Friday. It was an enjoyable two weeks of study and discussion on topics in string theory and holography. Eran Palti and Kyriakos Papadodimas were for me the highlight of the event. This is not meant to take away from others, it is just that Palti and Papadodimas were one of the …

Notes from this week’s particle cosmology conference

As I mentioned in a past post, this week I attended a particle cosmology conference. The talk that I had circled, and which was the main reason for my attendance, was Eran Palti's presentation on the string landscape and swampland conjectures. It did not disappoint. The talk was very much a repeat of Palti's lecture …

Particle cosmology conference (17 December 2018)

This week, I will be at a particle cosmology conference. The conference is at my home school, University of Nottingham, the perfect venue for such an engagement with our Particle Cosmology Group hosting some fantastic researchers. I will be attending, especially focused on my ongoing research and studies in string theory, particularly the string landscape …