Irrational Monodromies of Vacuum Energy

TL;DR

This paper introduces a model combining axion flux monodromies and nonperturbative effects to generate a landscape of vacua with arbitrarily small cosmological constants, potentially addressing the cosmological constant problem.

Contribution

It proposes a novel framework where irrational axion vacua emerge, reducing sensitivity to UV physics and naturally producing small cosmological constants.

Findings

Landscape of irrational axion vacua with small cosmological constants

Reduced sensitivity of vacuum energy to UV physics

Nonperturbative transitions populate the vacuum landscape

Abstract

We present a theory with axion flux monodromies coupled to gravity, that reduces to the local vacuum energy sequester below the axion mass scales. If the axion potentials include a term generated by nonperturbative couplings to gauge sectors, with a decay constant incommensurate with monodromy periods, the low energy potential germinates a landscape of irrational axion vacua, with arbitrarily small cosmological constants. The sensitivity of the values of cosmological constants to unknown UV physics can be greatly reduced. The variation of the cosmological constant in each vacuum, from one order in perturbation theory to the next, can be much smaller than the na\"ive cutoff. The nonperturbative transitions in the early universe between the vacua populate this landscape, similar to the case of irrational axion. In such a landscape of vacua a small cosmological constant can naturally emerge.