Tree-level moduli stabilization via geometric and non-geometric fluxes in type IIB orientifolds on CalabiYau manifolds is investigated. The focus is on stable non-supersymmetric minima, where all moduli are fixed except for some massless axions. The scenario includes the purely axionic orientifold-odd moduli. A set of vacua allowing for parametric control over the moduli vacuum expectation values and their masses is presented, featuring a specific scaling with the fluxes. Uplift mechanisms and supersymmetry breaking soft masses on MSSM-like D7-branes are discussed as well. This scenario provides a complete effective framework for realizing the idea of F-term axion monodromy inflation in string theory. It is argued that, with all masses close to the Planck and GUT scales, one is confronted with working at the threshold of controlling all mass hierarchies.

Some aspects of string compactifications with non-geometric fluxes are revisited in the light of recent progress in double field theory. After rederiving the general form of these fluxes, we consider the proposed flux induced four-dimensional effective superpotential and oxidize its induced scalar potential to terms in a ten-dimensional action. This analysis is performed independently for an explicit toroidal type IIA and its T-dual type IIB orientifold. We show in detail that the result of this bottom-up approach is compatible with the gauged supergravity motivated flux formulation of the double field theory action in both the NS-NS and the R-R sector.

A systematic analysis of possibilities for realizing single-field F-term axion monodromy inflation via the flux-induced superpotential in type IIB string theory is performed. In this well-defined setting the conditions arising from moduli stabilization are taken into account, where we focus on the complex-structure moduli but ignore the Kähler moduli sector. Our analysis leads to a no-go theorem, if the inflaton involves the universal axion. We furthermore construct an explicit example of F-term axion monodromy inflation, in which a single axion-like field is hierarchically lighter than all remaining complexstructure moduli.

It is shown that Starobinsky-like potentials can be realized in non-geometric flux compactifications of string theory, where the inflaton involves an axion whose shift symmetry can protect UV-corrections to the scalar potential. For that purpose we evaluate the backreacted, uplifted F-term axion-monodromy potential, which interpolates between a quadratic and a Starobinsky-like form. Limitations due to the requirements of having a controlled approximation of the UV theory and of realizing single-field inflation are discussed.

Non-geometric flux-scaling vacua provide promising starting points to realize axion monodromy inflation via the F-term scalar potential. We show that these vacua can be uplifted to Minkowski and de Sitter by adding an D3-brane or a D-term containing geometric and non-geometric fluxes. These uplifted non-supersymmetric models are analyzed with respect to their potential to realize axion monodromy inflation self-consistently. Admitting rational values of the fluxes, we construct examples with the required hierarchy of mass scales.