Bumping into the Species Scale with the Scalar Potential

Abstract

AbstractAs a quantum gravity cut‐off, the species scale gets naturally compared to the energy scale of a scalar potential V in an EFT. In this note, the species scale, its rate and their field dependence, to those of a scalar potential is compared. To that end, a string compactification leading to a scalar potential with the same properties as the species scale, namely, being positive, starting at a maximum in the bulk of field space and going asymptotically to zero is first identified. The trajectory followed in our 14‐fields scalar potential is the steepest descent. Evaluating the rate along this path, a local maximum, or bump, a feature noticed as well for the species scale are observed. The origin of this bump for the scalar potential, and compare it to that of the species scale are investigated.