TY - JOUR
T1 - TCC in the interior of moduli space and its implications for the string landscape and cosmology
AU - Bedroya, Alek
AU - Lu, Qianshu
AU - Steinhardt, Paul J.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2025.
PY - 2025/8
Y1 - 2025/8
N2 - We consider the classical Friedmann-Robertson-Walker solutions that describe a universe undergoing a transition from an accelerating expansion phase in the past to an eternal decelerating expansion phase in the future, driven by a scalar field evolving in a potential energy landscape. We show that any solution for which the accelerating phase violates the Trans-Planckian Censorship Conjecture (TCC), even in the interior of moduli space, never approaches the asymptotic vacuum with zero particles. Based on the assumption that the effective field theory must be valid for the vacuum on the asymptotic boundary, as motivated by holography and string theory, we argue that (multi-field) scalar potentials with such solutions are disallowed, thus strengthening the case for TCC. In particular, assuming the regularity of the future vacuum state in the string landscape, we derive results that imply a new set of highly-nonlinear constraints across the string landscape which in the absence of certain meta-stable vacua make realizing inflation impossible.
AB - We consider the classical Friedmann-Robertson-Walker solutions that describe a universe undergoing a transition from an accelerating expansion phase in the past to an eternal decelerating expansion phase in the future, driven by a scalar field evolving in a potential energy landscape. We show that any solution for which the accelerating phase violates the Trans-Planckian Censorship Conjecture (TCC), even in the interior of moduli space, never approaches the asymptotic vacuum with zero particles. Based on the assumption that the effective field theory must be valid for the vacuum on the asymptotic boundary, as motivated by holography and string theory, we argue that (multi-field) scalar potentials with such solutions are disallowed, thus strengthening the case for TCC. In particular, assuming the regularity of the future vacuum state in the string landscape, we derive results that imply a new set of highly-nonlinear constraints across the string landscape which in the absence of certain meta-stable vacua make realizing inflation impossible.
KW - Cosmological models
KW - Effective Field Theories
KW - Models of Quantum Gravity
KW - Superstring Vacua
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105012482135
UR - https://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=105012482135&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/JHEP08(2025)007
DO - 10.1007/JHEP08(2025)007
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:105012482135
SN - 1126-6708
VL - 2025
JO - Journal of High Energy Physics
JF - Journal of High Energy Physics
IS - 8
M1 - 7
ER -