Dark energy from string theory: an introductory review

TL;DR

This review explores how string theory can potentially explain dark energy, examining classical and quantum constraints, and discussing models like de Sitter solutions and quintessence.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of the efforts and challenges in deriving dark energy models from string theory, including classical de Sitter solutions and quintessence.

Findings

Multiple attempts to construct de Sitter solutions face significant difficulties.

String theory constraints limit the realization of dark energy models.

Single-field exponential quintessence models are discussed in detail.

Abstract

Dark energy, the main constituent in our expanding universe, responsible for its acceleration, is currently being observed with unprecedented precision through various experiments. While several cosmological models can fit this latest data, deriving some of them from string theory would provide a valuable theoretical prior, with information on the nature of dark energy. This article reviews the efforts towards such a derivation, namely the options from string theory to get a cosmological constant (a de Sitter solution) or a dynamical dark energy (via a quintessence model). After providing a brief historical perspective, we first review proven or conjectured constraints on obtaining dark energy from string theory, in classical or asymptotic regimes. Circumventing such obstructions, by changing regime or ansatz, one can try to construct a de Sitter solution: we present a long list of such attempts, and the difficulties encountered. Among them, we discuss in detail efforts towards classical de Sitter solutions. Then, we review quintessence from string theory, focusing on single-field exponential models. Related topics are discussed, including the coupling to matter, the comparison to observational data, and the absence of a cosmological event horizon.