skip to main content


Title: Type IIB flux compactifications with h1,1 = 0
A bstract We revisit flux compactifications of type IIB string theory on ‘spaces’ dual to rigid Calabi-Yau manifolds. This rather unexplored part of the string landscapes harbors many interesting four-dimensional solutions, namely supersymmetric $$ \mathcal{N} $$ N = 1 Minkowski vacua without flat direction and infinite families of AdS vacua, some potentially with unrestricted rank for the gauge group. We also comment on the existence of metastable dS solutions in this setup. We discuss how these solutions fit into the web of swampland conjectures.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
2013988
NSF-PAR ID:
10337116
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ; ;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Journal of High Energy Physics
Volume:
2022
Issue:
6
ISSN:
1029-8479
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. null (Ed.)
    A bstract Vacua of different gaugings of D = 4 $$ \mathcal{N} $$ N = 8 supergravity that preserve the same supersymmetries and bosonic symmetry tend to exhibit the same universal mass spectrum within their respective supergravities. For AdS 4 vacua in gauged supergravities that arise upon consistent truncation of string/M-theory, we show that this universality is lost at higher Kaluza-Klein levels. However, universality is still maintained in a milder form, at least in the graviton sector: certain sums over a finite number of states remain universal. Further, we derive a mass matrix for Kaluza-Klein gravitons which is valid for all the AdS 4 vacua in string/M-theory that uplift from the gaugings of D = 4 $$ \mathcal{N} $$ N = 8 supergravity that we consider. The mild universality of graviton mass sums is related to the trace of this mass matrix. 
    more » « less
  2. A bstract Type IIB flux vacua based on Landau-Ginzburg models without Kähler deformations provide fully-controlled insights into the non-geometric and strongly-coupled string landscape. We show here that supersymmetric flux configurations at the Fermat point of the 1 9 model, which were found long-time ago to saturate the orientifold tadpole, leave a number of massless fields, which however are not all flat directions of the superpotential at higher order. More generally, the rank of the Hessian of the superpotential is compatible with a suitably formulated tadpole conjecture for all fluxes that we found. Moreover, we describe new infinite families of supersymmetric 4d $$ \mathcal{N} $$ N = 1 Minkowski and AdS vacua and confront them with several other swampland conjectures. 
    more » « less
  3. A bstract We study non-supersymmetric extremal black hole excitations of 4d $$ \mathcal{N} $$ N = 2 supersymmetric string vacua arising from compactification on Calabi-Yau threefolds. The values of the (vector multiplet) moduli at the black hole horizon are governed by the attractor mechanism. This raises natural questions, such as “what is the distribution of attractor points on moduli space?” and “how many attractor black holes are there with horizon area up to a certain size?” We employ tools developed by Denef and Douglas [1] to answer these questions. 
    more » « less
  4. A bstract Recently, the first instance of a model of D-branes at Calabi-Yau singularities where supersymmetry is broken dynamically into stable vacua has been proposed. This construction was based on a system of N regular and M = 1 fractional branes placed at the tip of the so-called (orientifolded) Octagon singularity. In this paper we show that this model admits a large M generalization, having the same low energy effective dynamics. This opens up the possibility that the effect on geometry is smooth, and amenable to describing the gauge theory all along the RG flow, including the deep IR, in terms of a weakly coupled gravity dual background. The relevance of this result in the wider context of the string landscape and the Swampland program is also discussed. 
    more » « less
  5. A bstract We construct supersymmetric AdS 4 vacua of type IIB string theory in compactifications on orientifolds of Calabi-Yau threefold hypersurfaces. We first find explicit orientifolds and quantized fluxes for which the superpotential takes the form proposed by Kachru, Kallosh, Linde, and Trivedi. Given very mild assumptions on the numerical values of the Pfaffians, these compactifications admit vacua in which all moduli are stabilized at weak string coupling. By computing high-degree Gopakumar-Vafa invariants we give strong evidence that the α ′ expansion is likewise well-controlled. We find extremely small cosmological constants, with magnitude < 10 − 123 in Planck units. The compactifications are large, but not exponentially so, and hence these vacua manifest hierarchical scale-separation, with the AdS length exceeding the Kaluza-Klein length by a factor of a googol. 
    more » « less