Related papers: Vacua Morghulis
A strong-weak coupling duality symmetry of the string equations of motion has been suggested in the literature. This symmetry implies that vacua occur in pairs. Since the coupling constant is a dynamical variable in string theory, tunneling…
We study dynamical supersymmetry breaking in vector-like superconformal N=1 gauge theories. We find appropriate deformations of the superpotential to overcome the problem of the instability of the non supersymmetric vacuum. The request for…
We systematically analyze the decay of metastable topological defects that arise from the spontaneous breakdown of gauge or global symmetries. Quantum-mechanical tunneling rates are estimated for a variety of decay processes. The decay rate…
The breaking of $U(1)_R$ symmetry plays a crucial role in modeling the breaking of supersymmetry (SUSY). In the models that possess both SUSY preserving and SUSY breaking vacua, tube-like cosmic strings called R-tubes, whose surfaces are…
In order for string theory to be made compatible with the low-energy observations of a positive cosmological constant, there have been attempts to construct dS vacua in string theory which are particularly difficult to realize. Instead of…
There have been many attempts to construct de Sitter space-times in string theory. While arguably there have been some successes, this has proven challenging, leading to the de Sitter swampland conjecture: quantum theories of gravity do not…
We discover that some unstable vacua have long memory. By that we mean that even in the theories containing only massive particles, there are correllators and expectation values which grow with time. We examine the cases of instabilities…
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…
We discuss aspects of the problem of assigning probabilities in eternal inflation. In particular, we investigate a recent suggestion that the lowest energy de Sitter vacuum in the landscape is effectively stable. The associated proposal for…
We show that metastable cosmic strings break at early times, either via finite-temperature effects or by attaching to pre-existing monopoles during network percolation. The resulting segments can be initially super-horizon in size and thus…
Based on the probability distributions of products of random variables, we propose a simple stringy mechanism that prefers the meta-stable vacua with a small cosmological constant. We state some relevant properties of the probability…
We study moduli stabilisation in four-dimensional $N=1$ supergravity theories which originate from compactifications of the heterotic string on certain manifolds with $SU(3)$ structure. These theories have a non-trivial superpotential…
We construct a new class of metastable de Sitter vacua of flux compactifications of type IIB string theory. These solutions provide a natural extension of the `Large Volume Scenario' anti-de Sitter vacua, and can analogously be realised at…
One of the central problems of string-phenomenology is to find stable vacua in the four dimensional effective theories which result from compactification. We present an algorithmic method to find all of the vacua of any given…
We study deformations of N=1 supersymmetric QCD that exhibit a rich landscape of supersymmetric and non-supersymmetric vacua.
In string theory the coupling ``constants'' appearing in the low-energy effective Lagrangian are determined by the vacuum expectation values of some (a priori) massless scalar fields (dilaton, moduli). This naturally leads one to expect a…
The decay of an unstable D-brane via closed string emission and open string pair production is considered in subcritical string theory with a spacelike linear dilaton. The decay rate is given by the imaginary part of the annulus, which has…
The authors of arXiv:1610.01533 have recently proposed a stronger version of the weak gravity conjecture (WGC), based on which they concluded that all those non-supersymmetric AdS vacua that can be embedded within a constistent theory of…
We argue that the exact degeneracy of vacua in N=1 supergravity can shed light on the smallness of the cosmological constant. The presence of such vacua, which are degenerate to very high accuracy, may also result in small values of the…
Metastable strings can arise from a two-step symmetry breaking chain of the type $SU(2) \to U(1) \to 1$.They can decay through quantum tunneling by nucleating a monopole-antimonopole pair, and are prominent candidates for explaining the…