Abstract
It is known that there are AdS vacua obtained from compactifying the SM to 2 or 3 dimensions. The existence of such vacua depends on the value of neutrino masses through the Casimir effect. Using the Weak Gravity Conjecture, it has been recently argued by Ooguri and Vafa that such vacua are incompatible with the SM embedding into a consistent theory of quantum gravity. We study the limits obtained for both the cosmological constant Λ4 and neutrino masses from the absence of such dangerous 3D and 2D SM AdS vacua. One interesting implication is that Λ4 is bounded to be larger than a scale of order m 4 ν , as observed experimentally. Interestingly, this is the first argument implying a non-vanishing Λ4 only on the basis of particle physics, with no cosmological input. Conversely, the observed Λ4 implies strong constraints on neutrino masses in the SM and also for some BSM extensions including extra Weyl or Dirac spinors, gravitinos and axions. The upper bounds obtained for neutrino masses imply (for fixed neutrino Yukawa and Λ4) the existence of upper bounds on the EW scale. In the case of massive Majorana neutrinos with a see-saw mechanism associated to a large scale M ≃ 1010 − 14 GeV and Yν1 ≃ 10−3, one obtains that the EW scale cannot exceed MEW ≲ 102 − 104 GeV. From this point of view, the delicate fine-tuning required to get a small EW scale would be a mirage, since parameters yielding higher EW scales would be in the swampland and would not count as possible consistent theories. This would bring a new perspective into the issue of the EW hierarchy.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
J.D. Brown and C. Teitelboim, Neutralization of the cosmological constant by membrane creation, Nucl. Phys. B 297 (1988) 787 [INSPIRE].
J.D. Brown and C. Teitelboim, Dynamical neutralization of the cosmological constant, Phys. Lett. B 195 (1987) 177 [INSPIRE].
R. Bousso and J. Polchinski, Quantization of four form fluxes and dynamical neutralization of the cosmological constant, JHEP 06 (2000) 006 [hep-th/0004134] [INSPIRE].
J.L. Feng, J. March-Russell, S. Sethi and F. Wilczek, Saltatory relaxation of the cosmological constant, Nucl. Phys. B 602 (2001) 307 [hep-th/0005276] [INSPIRE].
S. Weinberg, The cosmological constant problem, Rev. Mod. Phys. 61 (1989) 1 [INSPIRE].
N. Arkani-Hamed, S. Dubovsky, A. Nicolis and G. Villadoro, Quantum horizons of the standard model landscape, JHEP 06 (2007) 078 [hep-th/0703067] [INSPIRE].
B. Fornal and M.B. Wise, Standard model with compactified spatial dimensions, JHEP 07 (2011) 086 [arXiv:1106.0890] [INSPIRE].
J.M. Arnold, B. Fornal and M.B. Wise, Standard model vacua for two-dimensional compactifications, JHEP 12 (2010) 083 [arXiv:1010.4302] [INSPIRE].
C. Vafa, The string landscape and the swampland, hep-th/0509212 [INSPIRE].
N. Arkani-Hamed, L. Motl, A. Nicolis and C. Vafa, The string landscape, black holes and gravity as the weakest force, JHEP 06 (2007) 060 [hep-th/0601001] [INSPIRE].
H. Ooguri and C. Vafa, On the geometry of the string landscape and the swampland, Nucl. Phys. B 766 (2007) 21 [hep-th/0605264] [INSPIRE].
T. Rudelius, Constraints on axion inflation from the weak gravity conjecture, JCAP 09 (2015) 020 [arXiv:1503.00795] [INSPIRE].
M. Montero, A.M. Uranga and I. Valenzuela, Transplanckian axions!?, JHEP 08 (2015) 032 [arXiv:1503.03886] [INSPIRE].
J. Brown, W. Cottrell, G. Shiu and P. Soler, Fencing in the swampland: quantum gravity constraints on large field inflation, JHEP 10 (2015) 023 [arXiv:1503.04783] [INSPIRE].
J. Brown, W. Cottrell, G. Shiu and P. Soler, On axionic field ranges, loopholes and the weak gravity conjecture, JHEP 04 (2016) 017 [arXiv:1504.00659] [INSPIRE].
B. Heidenreich, M. Reece and T. Rudelius, Weak gravity strongly constrains large-field axion inflation, JHEP 12 (2015) 108 [arXiv:1506.03447] [INSPIRE].
C. Cheung and G.N. Remmen, Naturalness and the weak gravity conjecture, Phys. Rev. Lett. 113 (2014) 051601 [arXiv:1402.2287] [INSPIRE].
A. de la Fuente, P. Saraswat and R. Sundrum, Natural inflation and quantum gravity, Phys. Rev. Lett. 114 (2015) 151303 [arXiv:1412.3457] [INSPIRE].
A. Hebecker, P. Mangat, F. Rompineve and L.T. Witkowski, Winding out of the swamp: evading the weak gravity conjecture with F-term winding inflation?, Phys. Lett. B 748 (2015) 455 [arXiv:1503.07912] [INSPIRE].
T.C. Bachlechner, C. Long and L. McAllister, Planckian axions and the weak gravity conjecture, JHEP 01 (2016) 091 [arXiv:1503.07853] [INSPIRE].
T. Rudelius, On the possibility of large axion moduli spaces, JCAP 04 (2015) 049 [arXiv:1409.5793] [INSPIRE].
D. Junghans, Large-field inflation with multiple axions and the weak gravity conjecture, JHEP 02 (2016) 128 [arXiv:1504.03566] [INSPIRE].
K. Kooner, S. Parameswaran and I. Zavala, Warping the weak gravity conjecture, Phys. Lett. B 759 (2016) 402 [arXiv:1509.07049] [INSPIRE].
D. Harlow, Wormholes, emergent gauge fields and the weak gravity conjecture, JHEP 01 (2016) 122 [arXiv:1510.07911] [INSPIRE].
A. Hebecker, F. Rompineve and A. Westphal, Axion monodromy and the weak gravity conjecture, JHEP 04 (2016) 157 [arXiv:1512.03768] [INSPIRE].
M. Montero, G. Shiu and P. Soler, The weak gravity conjecture in three dimensions, JHEP 10 (2016) 159 [arXiv:1606.08438] [INSPIRE].
B. Freivogel and M. Kleban, Vacua morghulis, arXiv:1610.04564 [INSPIRE].
P. Saraswat, Weak gravity conjecture and effective field theory, Phys. Rev. D 95 (2017) 025013 [arXiv:1608.06951] [INSPIRE].
D. Klaewer and E. Palti, Super-Planckian spatial field variations and quantum gravity, JHEP 01 (2017) 088 [arXiv:1610.00010] [INSPIRE].
L. McAllister, P. Schwaller, G. Servant, J. Stout and A. Westphal, Runaway relaxion monodromy, arXiv:1610.05320 [INSPIRE].
M. Montero, A.M. Uranga and I. Valenzuela, A Chern-Simons pandemic, JHEP 07 (2017) 123 [arXiv:1702.06147] [INSPIRE].
W. Cottrell, G. Shiu and P. Soler, Weak gravity conjecture and extremal black holes, PoS(CORFU2016)130 [arXiv:1611.06270] [INSPIRE].
A. Hebecker, P. Henkenjohann and L.T. Witkowski, What is the magnetic weak gravity conjecture for axions?, Fortsch. Phys. 65 (2017) 1700011 [arXiv:1701.06553] [INSPIRE].
A. Hebecker and P. Soler, The weak gravity conjecture and the axionic black hole paradox, JHEP 09 (2017) 036 [arXiv:1702.06130] [INSPIRE].
E. Palti, The weak gravity conjecture and scalar fields, JHEP 08 (2017) 034 [arXiv:1705.04328] [INSPIRE].
H. Ooguri and C. Vafa, Non-supersymmetric AdS and the swampland, arXiv:1610.01533 [INSPIRE].
U. Danielsson and G. Dibitetto, Fate of stringy AdS vacua and the weak gravity conjecture, Phys. Rev. D 96 (2017) 026020 [arXiv:1611.01395] [INSPIRE].
T. Banks, Note on a paper by Ooguri and Vafa, arXiv:1611.08953 [INSPIRE].
H. Ooguri and L. Spodyneiko, New Kaluza-Klein instantons and the decay of AdS vacua, Phys. Rev. D 96 (2017) 026016 [arXiv:1703.03105] [INSPIRE].
J.M. Maldacena, J. Michelson and A. Strominger, Anti-de Sitter fragmentation, JHEP 02 (1999) 011 [hep-th/9812073] [INSPIRE].
J.L.F. Barbon and E. Rabinovici, Holography of AdS vacuum bubbles, JHEP 04 (2010) 123 [arXiv:1003.4966] [INSPIRE].
D. Harlow, Metastability in anti de Sitter space, arXiv:1003.5909 [INSPIRE].
S.R. Coleman and F. De Luccia, Gravitational effects on and of vacuum decay, Phys. Rev. D 21 (1980) 3305 [INSPIRE].
S. Kachru, R. Kallosh, A.D. Linde and S.P. Trivedi, De Sitter vacua in string theory, Phys. Rev. D 68 (2003) 046005 [hep-th/0301240] [INSPIRE].
S. de Alwis, R. Gupta, E. Hatefi and F. Quevedo, Stability, tunneling and flux changing de Sitter transitions in the large volume string scenario, JHEP 11 (2013) 179 [arXiv:1308.1222] [INSPIRE].
T. Clifton, A.D. Linde and N. Sivanandam, Islands in the landscape, JHEP 02 (2007) 024 [hep-th/0701083] [INSPIRE].
A.R. Brown and A. Dahlen, Giant leaps and minimal branes in multi-dimensional flux landscapes, Phys. Rev. D 84 (2011) 023513 [arXiv:1010.5241] [INSPIRE].
A.R. Brown and A. Dahlen, Populating the whole landscape, Phys. Rev. Lett. 107 (2011) 171301 [arXiv:1108.0119] [INSPIRE].
E. Witten, Instability of the Kaluza-Klein vacuum, Nucl. Phys. B 195 (1982) 481 [INSPIRE].
Y. Hamada and G. Shiu, Weak gravity conjecture, multiple point principle and the standard model landscape, arXiv:1707.06326 [INSPIRE].
Particle Data Group collaboration, C. Patrignani et al., Review of particle physics, Chin. Phys. C 40 (2016) 100001 [INSPIRE].
F. Simpson, R. Jiménez, C. Peña-Garay and L. Verde, Strong bayesian evidence for the normal neutrino hierarchy, JCAP 06 (2017) 029 [arXiv:1703.03425] [INSPIRE].
M. Agostini, G. Benato and J. Detwiler, Discovery probability of next-generation neutrinoless double-β decay experiments, Phys. Rev. D 96 (2017) 053001 [arXiv:1705.02996] [INSPIRE].
T. Schwetz et al., Comment on “strong evidence for the normal neutrino hierarchy”, arXiv:1703.04585 [INSPIRE].
S. Vagnozzi et al., Unveiling ν secrets with cosmological data: neutrino masses and mass hierarchy, arXiv:1701.08172 [INSPIRE].
S. Gariazzo, C. Giunti, M. Laveder, Y.F. Li and E.M. Zavanin, Light sterile neutrinos, J. Phys. G 43 (2016) 033001 [arXiv:1507.08204] [INSPIRE].
K.N. Abazajian et al., Light sterile neutrinos: a white paper, arXiv:1204.5379 [INSPIRE].
A. Palazzo, Constraints on very light sterile neutrinos from θ 13-sensitive reactor experiments, JHEP 10 (2013) 172 [arXiv:1308.5880] [INSPIRE].
Y. Oyama and M. Kawasaki, Constraining light gravitino mass with 21 cm line observation, arXiv:1605.09191 [INSPIRE].
K. Osato, T. Sekiguchi, M. Shirasaki, A. Kamada and N. Yoshida, Cosmological constraint on the light gravitino mass from CMB lensing and cosmic shear, JCAP 06 (2016) 004 [arXiv:1601.07386] [INSPIRE].
C. Brust, D.E. Kaplan and M.T. Walters, New light species and the CMB, JHEP 12 (2013) 058 [arXiv:1303.5379] [INSPIRE].
M. Pospelov and J. Pradler, Big bang nucleosynthesis as a probe of new physics, Ann. Rev. Nucl. Part. Sci. 60 (2010) 539 [arXiv:1011.1054] [INSPIRE].
F. Maltoni, A. Martini, K. Mawatari and B. Oexl, Signals of a superlight gravitino at the LHC, JHEP 04 (2015) 021 [arXiv:1502.01637] [INSPIRE].
I. Ostrovskiy and K. O’Sullivan, Search for neutrinoless double beta decay, Mod. Phys. Lett. A 31 (2016) 1630017 [Erratum ibid. A 31 (2016) 1692004] [arXiv:1605.00631] [INSPIRE].
G. Grilli di Cortona, E. Hardy, J. Pardo Vega and G. Villadoro, The QCD axion, precisely, JHEP 01 (2016) 034 [arXiv:1511.02867] [INSPIRE].
P.W. Graham, D.E. Kaplan and S. Rajendran, Cosmological relaxation of the electroweak scale, Phys. Rev. Lett. 115 (2015) 221801 [arXiv:1504.07551] [INSPIRE].
J.R. Espinosa, C. Grojean, G. Panico, A. Pomarol, O. Pujolás and G. Servant, Cosmological Higgs-axion interplay for a naturally small electroweak scale, Phys. Rev. Lett. 115 (2015) 251803 [arXiv:1506.09217] [INSPIRE].
L.E. Ibáñez, M. Montero, A. Uranga and I. Valenzuela, Relaxion monodromy and the weak gravity conjecture, JHEP 04 (2016) 020 [arXiv:1512.00025] [INSPIRE].
A. Hebecker, J. Moritz, A. Westphal and L.T. Witkowski, Towards axion monodromy inflation with warped KK-modes, Phys. Lett. B 754 (2016) 328 [Erratum ibid. B 767 (2017) 493] [arXiv:1512.04463] [INSPIRE].
A. Herráez and L.E. Ibáñez, An axion-induced SM/MSSM Higgs landscape and the weak gravity conjecture, JHEP 02 (2017) 109 [arXiv:1610.08836] [INSPIRE].
L. Hui, J.P. Ostriker, S. Tremaine and E. Witten, Ultralight scalars as cosmological dark matter, Phys. Rev. D 95 (2017) 043541 [arXiv:1610.08297] [INSPIRE].
A. Arvanitaki, S. Dimopoulos, S. Dubovsky, N. Kaloper and J. March-Russell, String axiverse, Phys. Rev. D 81 (2010) 123530 [arXiv:0905.4720] [INSPIRE].
P.W. Graham, R. Harnik and S. Rajendran, Observing the dimensionality of our parent vacuum, Phys. Rev. D 82 (2010) 063524 [arXiv:1003.0236] [INSPIRE].
Open Access
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits any use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
ArXiv ePrint: 1706.05392
Rights and permissions
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made.
The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.
To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
About this article
Cite this article
Ibáñez, L.E., Martín-Lozano, V. & Valenzuela, I. Constraining neutrino masses, the cosmological constant and BSM physics from the weak gravity conjecture. J. High Energ. Phys. 2017, 66 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP11(2017)066
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP11(2017)066