Monodromy inflation and an emergent mechanism for stabilising the cosmological constant

TL;DR

This paper proposes a novel mechanism using paired monodromies in field theory to naturally cancel radiative corrections to the cosmological constant, potentially applicable in string theory models.

Contribution

It introduces a new approach combining monodromy sectors with a sequestering mechanism to stabilize the cosmological constant.

Findings

Monodromy sectors can act as inflation drivers and counterterms.

A global constraint via a dilaton enforces vacuum energy cancellation.

The mechanism is compatible with string theory constructions.

Abstract

We show that a pair of field theory monodromies in which the shift symmetry is broken by small, well motivated deformations, naturally incorporates a mechanism for cancelling off radiative corrections to the cosmological constant. The lighter monodromy sector plays the role of inflation as well as providing a rigid degree of freedom that acts as a dynamical counterterm for the cosmological constant. The heavier monodromy sector includes a rigid dilaton that forces a global constraint on the system and the cancellation of vacuum energy loops occurs at low energies via the sequestering mechanism. This suggests that monodromy constructions in string theory could be adapted to incorporate mechanisms to stabilise the cosmological constant in their low energy descriptions.