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We consider cosmological aspects of the Dark Dimension (a mesoscopic dimension of micron scale), which has recently been proposed as the unique corner of the quantum gravity landscape consistent with both the Swampland criteria and observations. In particular we show how this leads, by the universal coupling of the Standard Model sector to bulk gravitons, to massive spin 2 KK excitations of the graviton in the dark dimension (the “dark gravitons”) as an unavoidable dark matter candidate. Assuming a lifetime for the current de Sitter phase of our universe of order Hubble, which follows from both the dS Swampland Conjecture and TCC, we show that generic features of the dark dimension cosmology can naturally lead to the correct dark matter density and a resolution of the cosmological coincidence problem, where the matter/radiation equality temperature (T~ 1 eV) coincides with the temperature where the dark energy begins to dominate. Thus one does not need to appeal to Weinberg’s anthropic argument to explain this coincidence. The dark gravitons are produced atT~ 4 GeV, and their composition changes as they mainly decay to lighter gravitons, without losing much total mass density. The mass of dark gravitons ism_DM∼ 1 − 100 keV today.

 

A bstract We argue that supersymmetric BPS states can act as efficient finite energy probes of the moduli space geometry thanks to the attractor mechanism. We focus on 4d $$ \mathcal{N} $$ N = 2 compactifications and capture aspects of the effective field theory near the attractor values in terms of physical quantities far away in moduli space. Furthermore, we illustrate how the standard distance in moduli space can be related asymptotically to the black hole mass. We also compute a measure of the resolution with which BPS black holes of a given mass can distinguish far away points in the moduli space. The black hole probes may lead to a deeper understanding of the Swampland constraints on the geometry of the moduli space. 

A bstract We point out that pure supergravity theories in AdS with enough supersymmetry lead, upon taking the large radius limit, to flat space quantum gravities with a nonperturbatively exact global symmetry, and are therefore in the Swampland. The argument applies to any AdS supergravity with gauged R-symmetry group, including truncations of most well known examples, such as AdS 5 without the S 5 or AdS 4 without the S 7 . This demonstrates that extreme scale separation, at least with enough supersymmetry, is not realizable. Moreover pure AdS theories are also in conflict with some other Swampland principles including the Weak Gravity Conjecture and the (generalized) Distance Conjecture. 

Abstract We view and provide further evidence for a number of swampland criteria, including the weak gravity conjecture, distance conjecture and bounds on the finiteness of the quantum gravity vacua from the prism of the finiteness of black hole entropy. Furthermore we propose that at least all of these swampland statements may be more fundamentally a consequence of the finiteness of quantum gravity amplitudes. 

A bstract AdS flux vacua with a parametric separation between the AdS and KK scales have been conjectured to be in the Swampland. We study flux compactifications of massive IIA supergravity with O6 planes which are claimed to allow moduli-stabilised and scale separated AdS 3 and AdS 4 vacua at arbitrary weak coupling and large volume. A recent refinement of the AdS Distance Conjecture is shown to be inconsistent with this class of AdS 3 vacua because the requisite discrete higher form symmetries are absent. We further perform a tree-level study of non-perturbative decays for the nonsupersymmetric versions of the AdS 3 solutions, and find that the vacua are stable within this approximation. Finally, we provide an initial investigation of the would-be dual CFT 2 s and CFT 3 s. We study roughly a dozen different models and find for all AdS 4 DGKT-type vacua that the dual operators to the lightest scalars have integer dimensions. For the putative CFT 2 dual theories of the AdS 3 vacua we find no integer dimensions for the operators. 

A bstract We draw attention to a class of generalized global symmetries, which we call “Chern-Weil global symmetries,” that arise ubiquitously in gauge theories. The Noether currents of these Chern-Weil global symmetries are given by wedge products of gauge field strengths, such as F 2 ∧ H 3 and tr( $$ {F}_2^2 $$ F 2 2 ), and their conservation follows from Bianchi identities. As a result, they are not easy to break. However, it is widely believed that exact global symmetries are not allowed in a consistent theory of quantum gravity. As a result, any Chern-Weil global symmetry in a low-energy effective field theory must be either broken or gauged when the theory is coupled to gravity. In this paper, we explore the processes by which Chern-Weil symmetries may be broken or gauged in effective field theory and string theory. We will see that many familiar phenomena in string theory, such as axions, Chern-Simons terms, worldvolume degrees of freedom, and branes ending on or dissolving in other branes, can be interpreted as consequences of the absence of Chern-Weil symmetries in quantum gravity, suggesting that they might be general features of quantum gravity. We further discuss implications of breaking and gauging Chern-Weil symmetries for particle phenomenology and for boundary CFTs of AdS bulk theories. Chern-Weil global symmetries thus offer a unified framework for understanding many familiar aspects of quantum field theory and quantum gravity. 

A bstract It is widely believed that consistent theories of quantum gravity satisfy two basic kinematic constraints: they are free from any global symmetry, and they contain a complete spectrum of gauge charges. For compact, abelian gauge groups, completeness follows from the absence of a 1-form global symmetry. However, this correspondence breaks down for more general gauge groups, where the breaking of the 1-form symmetry is insufficient to guarantee a complete spectrum. We show that the correspondence may be restored by broadening our notion of symmetry to include non-invertible topological operators, and prove that their absence is sufficient to guarantee a complete spectrum for any compact, possibly disconnected gauge group. In addition, we prove an analogous statement regarding the completeness of twist vortices : codimension-2 objects defined by a discrete holonomy around their worldvolume, such as cosmic strings in four dimensions. We discuss how this correspondence is modified in various, more general contexts, including non-compact gauge groups, Higgsing of gauge theories, and the addition of Chern-Simons terms. Finally, we discuss the implications of our results for the Swampland program, as well as the phenomenological implications of the existence of twist strings.