Quintessence from M-Theory

Abstract

The status of exponential scalar potentials in supergravity is reviewed, and updated. One version of N=8 D=4 supergravity with a positive exponential potential, obtainable from a `non-compactification' of M-theory, is shown to have an accelerating cosmological solution that realizes `eternal quintessence'. Some implications for a de Sitter version of the domain wall/QFT correspondence are discussed.

Comments: 15 pp. Revised to correct the analysis in the previous (and published) version of a particular class of massive supergravity theories (of secondary interest to the theme of the paper). Minor numerical errors and typos have been corrected too