Cosmology and the Stringy Landscape
Shamit Kachru
Stanford University
skachru@stanford.edu
Additional authors: (none)
I describe some of the ingredients which go into building string theory models of particle physics and cosmology. An important role is played by moduli fields, light scalar fields which could have various interesting (and possibly disastrous) cosmological consequences. Current ideas about fixing the moduli suggest possible origins of the dark energy in string theory, and also suggest the existence of a vast stringy ``landscape'' of possible 4d worlds. I also briefly describe potential signatures arising from stringy models of inflation.
