Related papers: Metastable Domains of the Landscape

We conjecture that all vacua in string theory decay. More precisely, non-supersymmetric vacua in string theory are at most metastable and eventually decay, while supersymmetric vacua are only marginally stable. All de Sitter vacua with…

In the context of flux compactifications, metastable vacua with a small positive cosmological constant are obtained by combining a sector where supersymmetry is broken dynamically with the sector responsible for moduli stabilization, which…

We argue that a generic instability afflicts vacua that arise in theories whose moduli space has large dimension. Specifically, by studying theories with multiple scalar fields we provide numerical evidence that for a generic local minimum…

We consider matter density effects in theories with a false ground state. Large and dense systems, such as stars, can destabilize a metastable minimum and allow for the formation of bubbles of the true minimum. We derive the conditions…

Under the hypothesis that the cosmological constant vanishes in the true ground state with lowest possible energy density, we argue that the observed small but finite vacuum-like energy density can be explained if we consider a theory with…

Supersymmetric vacua are stable. It is interesting to ask: how long-lived are vacua which are nearly supersymmetric? This question is relevant if our universe is approximately supersymmetric. It is also of importance for a number of issues…

The possibility of a landscape of metastable vacua raises the question of what fraction of vacua are truly long lived. Naively any would-be vacuum state has many nearby decay paths, and all possible decays must be suppressed. An interesting…

Under the assumption that the cosmological constant vanishes in the true ground state with lowest possible energy density, we argue that the observed small but finite vacuum-like energy density can be explained if we consider a theory with…

We study the stability of supersymmetry breaking metastable vacua and supersymmetric vacua in the presence of solitons. The metastable vacua of supersymmetric QCD and those found elsewhere such as in models based on the SU(5) grand unified…

In the landscape, if there is to be any prospect of scientific prediction, it is crucial that there be states which are distinguished in some way. The obvious candidates are states which exhibit symmetries. Here we focus on states which…

We argue that in the context of string theory a large number N of connected degenerate vacua that mix will lead to a ground state with much lower energy, essentially because of the standard level repulsion of quantum theory for the…

There is evidence that string theory possesses a large discretuum of stable and/or metastable ground states, with zero or four supersymmetries in four dimensions. I discuss critically the nature of this evidence. Assuming this "landscape"…

Finite density effects can destabilize the metastable vacua in relaxion models. Focusing on stars as nucleation seeds, we derive the conditions that lead to the formation and runaway of a relaxion bubble of a lower energy minimum than in…

After reviewing the cosmological constant problem - why is Lambda not huge? - I outline the two basic approaches that had emerged by the late 1980s, and note that each made a clear prediction. Precision cosmological experiments now indicate…

In this scenario, a generic meta-stable deSitter vacuum site in the cosmic landscape in string theory has a very short lifetime. Typically, the smaller is the vacuum energy of a meta-stable site, the longer is its lifetime. This view of the…

Landscape analyses often assume the existence of large numbers of fields, $N$, with all of the many couplings among these fields (subject to constraints such as local supersymmetry) selected independently and randomly from simple (say…

In supersymmetric models with the run-away vacua or with the stable but non-supersymmetric ground state there exist stable field configurations (vacua) which restore one half of supersymmetry and are characterized by constant positive…

Macroscopic fundamental and Dirichlet strings have several potential instabilities: breakage, tachyon decays, and confinement by axion domain walls. We investigate the conditions under which metastable strings can exist, and we find that…

Motivated by recent discussions of the string-theory landscape, we propose field-theoretic realizations of models with large numbers of vacua. These models contain multiple U(1) gauge groups, and can be interpreted as deconstructed versions…

Colloidal particles are often seen as big atoms that can be directly observed in real space. They are therefore playing an increasingly important role as model systems to study processes of interest in condensed matter physics such as…