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Isolated Critical Points for Scherk-Schwarz Compactifications of M-theory

High Energy Physics - Theory 2026-05-19 v1

Abstract

We consider Scherk-Schwarz compactifications of M-theory (toroidal compactifications with a non-trivial spin structure) in various dimensions and find isolated critical points of the potential on the moduli space. We demonstrate this by identifying the unbroken duality group and finding isolated points on the moduli spaces which are fixed by elements of the unbroken duality group. We work out concrete examples involving compactifications down to d=8,6,5d=8,6, 5 and 44 spacetime dimensions. We also conjecture a duality covariant anomaly cancellation condition for M-theory on TnT^n orbifolded by discrete ZN\mathbb Z_N symmetries acting as phases on the charge lattice. This anomaly cancellation condition generalizes the level matching requirement for perturbative string orbifolds.

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Cite

@article{arxiv.2605.16484,
  title  = {Isolated Critical Points for Scherk-Schwarz Compactifications of M-theory},
  author = {Zihni Kaan Baykara and Shi Chen and Cumrun Vafa},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2605.16484},
  year   = {2026}
}

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34 pages