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Cosmological implications of a light dilaton

Supersymmetric Peccei-Quinn symmetry and string theory predict a complex scalar field comprising a dilaton and an axion. These fields are massless at high energies, but it is known since long that the axion is stabilized in an instanton dominated vacuum. Instantons and axions together also provide a mechanism to stabilize a dilaton, thus accounting for a dilaton as a possible cold dark matter component accompanying the axion. We briefly review the prospects of this scenario and point out further implications.