An index for flux vacua
High Energy Physics - Theory
2025-10-07 v2
Abstract
We propose to use the winding number of the gradient of a scalar potential as a simple topological index that relates critical points in the interior of the scalar field space to the behavior of the potential at the (asymptotic) boundary of the field space. We demonstrate this technique for supersymmetric flux compactifications of M-theory on Calabi-Yau four-folds, and use the Fermat sextic as a simple, one-parameter example.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2405.04584,
title = {An index for flux vacua},
author = {Severin Lüst},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2405.04584},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
43 pages, 3 figures; v2: minor corrections, two Mathematica notebooks added