Speaker
Thorsten Battefeld
(Goettingen U.)
Description
Random potentials are often used to model the string theoretical landscape. Taking axionic landscapes as a simple example, I discuss the distribution of minima that are reached dynamically, both numerically and analytically. Such landscapes are well suited for inflationary model building due to the presence of shift symmetries and possible alignment effects (the KNP mechanism). The resulting distribution of dynamically reached minima differs considerably from the naive expectation based on counting all vacua. These differences are more pronounced in the presence of many fields due to dynamical selection effects. We show that common analytic arguments based on random matrix theory in the large D-limit to estimate the distribution of minima are insufficient for quantitative arguments pertaining to the dynamically reached ones. This discrepancy is not restricted to axionic potentials. I further comment on additional changes to the distribution induced by instabilities with respect to tunneling.
