One-loop quantum corrections to cosmological scalar field potentials

TL;DR

This paper analyzes quantum loop corrections to scalar field potentials in cosmology, demonstrating stability in some models, addressing instabilities in others, and exploring the effects of fermion couplings, curvature, and kinetic terms.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of quantum corrections to cosmological scalar potentials, proposing solutions to potential instabilities and restrictions on fermion couplings.

Findings

SUGRA quintessence and dark matter potentials are stable against quantum fluctuations.

Instabilities in coupled quintessence and dark fluid potentials can be mitigated with specific solutions.

Fermion couplings are highly restricted unless structured to cancel quantum effects.

Abstract

We study the loop corrections to potentials of complex or coupled real scalar fields used in cosmology to account for dark energy, dark matter or dark fluid. We show that the SUGRA quintessence and dark matter scalar field potentials are stable against the quantum fluctuations, and we propose solutions to the instability of the potentials of coupled quintessence and dark fluid scalar fields. We also find that a coupling to fermions is very restricted, unless this coupling has a structure which already exists in the scalar field potential or which can be compensated by higher order corrections. Finally, we study the influence of the curvature and kinetic term corrections.