Vacuum compactifications may suffer from instabilities under small perturbations or tunnel effects; both are difficult to analyze. In this paper we consider the issue from a higher-dimensional perspective. We first look at how stability works for supersymmetric vacua, where it is widely expected to hold. We first show that the nucleation of brane bubbles in type II AdS compactifications is forbidden in the probe approximation by a simple argument involving pure spinors and calibrations. We then adapt familiar positive-energy theorems directly to M-theory and type II supergravity, rather than to their effective lower-dimensional reductions, also showing how to consistently include localized sources. We finally initiate an analysis of how these arguments might be extended to non-supersymmetric vacua. In M-theory, at the lower-derivative level, we find that the most natural modifications fail to stabilize the skew-whiffed and Englert vacua.

Giri, S., Martucci, L., Tomasiello, A. (2022). On the stability of string theory vacua. JOURNAL OF HIGH ENERGY PHYSICS, 2022(4) [10.1007/JHEP04(2022)054].

On the stability of string theory vacua

Suvendu Giri
;
Luca Martucci;Alessandro Tomasiello
2022

Abstract

Vacuum compactifications may suffer from instabilities under small perturbations or tunnel effects; both are difficult to analyze. In this paper we consider the issue from a higher-dimensional perspective. We first look at how stability works for supersymmetric vacua, where it is widely expected to hold. We first show that the nucleation of brane bubbles in type II AdS compactifications is forbidden in the probe approximation by a simple argument involving pure spinors and calibrations. We then adapt familiar positive-energy theorems directly to M-theory and type II supergravity, rather than to their effective lower-dimensional reductions, also showing how to consistently include localized sources. We finally initiate an analysis of how these arguments might be extended to non-supersymmetric vacua. In M-theory, at the lower-derivative level, we find that the most natural modifications fail to stabilize the skew-whiffed and Englert vacua.
Articolo in rivista - Articolo scientifico
M-Theory; Superstring Vacua;
English
8-apr-2022
2022
2022
4
54
open
Giri, S., Martucci, L., Tomasiello, A. (2022). On the stability of string theory vacua. JOURNAL OF HIGH ENERGY PHYSICS, 2022(4) [10.1007/JHEP04(2022)054].
File in questo prodotto:
File Dimensione Formato  
10281-394889_VoR.pdf

accesso aperto

Tipologia di allegato: Publisher’s Version (Version of Record, VoR)
Licenza: Creative Commons
Dimensione 767.24 kB
Formato Adobe PDF
767.24 kB Adobe PDF Visualizza/Apri

I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.

Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/10281/394889
Citazioni
  • Scopus 8
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.isi??? 7
Social impact