Related papers: de Sitter extrema and the swampland
This review article provides a pedagogical introduction into various classes of chiral string compactifications to four dimensions with D-branes and fluxes. The main concern is to provide all necessary technical tools to explicitly…
We consider compactifications of M-theory and type IIA string theory to four dimensions. For Minkowski space-time, a supergravity no-go theorem forbids flux supported in the internal space. We show how to evade this no-go theorem by…
We study warped compactifications of string/M theory with the help of effective potentials, continuing previous work of the last two authors and Michael R. Douglas presented in arXiv:1206.1885. The dynamics of the conformal factor of the…
We study the restrictions imposed by cancellation of the tadpoles for two, three, and four-form gauge fields in string theory, M-theory and F-theory compactified to two, three and four dimensions, respectively. For a large class of…
Perhaps the greatest challenge for fundamental theories based on compactification from extra dimensions is accommodating a period of accelerated cosmological expansion. Previous studies have identified constraints imposed by the existence…
We provide a qualitative review of flux compactifications of string theory, focusing on broad physical implications and statistical methods of analysis.
It has recently been argued that string theory does not admit de Sitter vacua. This would imply that the current accelerated expansion of the universe is not driven by a cosmological constant (or vacuum energy) but by other means such as a…
Higher-derivative corrections to cosmological effective actions in string theory are largely constrained by T-duality, but have been computed hitherto only to the first few orders in the string scale $\alpha'$. The functional…
In recent times, a considerable effort has been dedicated to identify certain conditions -- the so-called swampland conjectures -- with an eye on identifying effective theories which have no consistent UV-completions in string theory. In…
Lorentz-invariant expectation values for antisymmetric tensor field strengths in Calabi-Yau compactification of IIA string theory are considered. These are found to impart magnetic and/or electric charges to the dilaton hypermultiplet. This…
We study the entropy of concrete de Sitter flux compactifications and deformations of them containing D-brane domain walls. We determine the relevant causal and thermodynamic properties of these "D-Sitter" deformations of de Sitter…
We consider Dirichlet p-branes in type II string theory on a space which has been toroidally compactified in d dimensions. We give an explicit construction of the field theory description of this system by putting a countably infinite…
Recently proposed de Sitter Swampland conjectures imply non-trivial constraints on a scalar field potential in any effective field theory that admits a quantum gravity completion. The original conjecture apparently excludes many…
We argue for the existence of additional constraints on SU(2) gauge theories in four dimensions when realized in ultraviolet completions admitting an analog of D-brane nucleation. In type II string compactifications these constraints are…
Supercritical string theories in D>10 dimensions with no moduli are described, generalizing the asymmetric orientifold construction of one of the authors. By taking the number of dimensions to be large and turning on fluxes, dilaton…
We describe the structure of string vacuum states in the supersymmetric matrix model for M theory compactified on a circle in the large-N limit. We show that the theory admits topological instanton field configurations which at…
We analyse soft supersymmetry breaking in type IIB de Sitter string vacua after moduli stabilisation, focussing on models in which the Standard Model is sequestered from the supersymmetry breaking sources and the spectrum of soft-terms is…
It is challenging to construct explicit and controllable models that realize de Sitter solutions in string compactifications. This difficulty is the main motivation for the Refined de Sitter Conjecture and the Trans-Planckian Censorship…
We investigate the construction of non-supersymmetric vacua in compactifications of heterotic string theory with intrinsic torsion and background fluxes. We do this by using the technique of domain-wall supersymmetry breaking (DWSB) that…
Recently, various swampland conjectures have been proposed that every UV complete effective field theory should satisfy. In particular, these deal with the properties of AdS and dS solutions arising in theories of quantum gravity. Mainly…