Related papers: Theta-problem and the String Swampland
We analyze the anomaly constraints on 6D supergravity theories with a single abelian U(1) gauge factor. For theories with charges restricted to $q = \pm1, \pm2$ and no tensor multiplets, anomaly-free models match those models that can be…
The experimental data of the past decade suggests that the quantum gravity vacuum should possess two key ingredients. The existence of three generations and their embedding in SO(10) representations. The Z2XZ2 orbifold of the heterotic…
We give a brief overview of the string landscape and techniques used to construct string compactifications. We then explain how this motivates the notion of the swampland and review a number of conjectures that attempt to characterize…
We study the scattering of a massless and neutral test particle in the gravitational field of a body (the string star) made of a large number of scalar states of the superstring. We consider two cases, the one in which these states are…
We discuss R-symmetries in locally supersymmetric N=2 gauge theories coupled to hypermultiplets which can be thought of as effective theories of heterotic superstring models. In this type of supergravities a suitable R-symmetry exists and…
In a quantum gravity theory the entropy of entanglement $S$ between the fundamental degrees of freedom spatially divided by a surface is discussed. The classical gravity is considered as an emergent phenomenon and arguments are presented…
The dependence on the topological theta angle term in quantum field theory is usually discussed in the context of instanton calculus. There the observables are 2 pi periodic, analytic functions of theta. However, in strongly coupled…
For certain terms in the action, supersymmetry can forbid an infinite number of possible contributions. We study whether such protection can occur in quantum gravity even without sufficient supersymmetry. We focus on whether the…
A discussion of the field content of quadratic higher-derivative gravitation is presented, together with a new example of a massless spin-two field consistently coupled to gravity. The full quadratic gravity theory is shown to be equivalent…
Similar to QCD, general relativity has a $\Theta$ sector due to large diffeomorphisms. We make explicit, for the first time, that the gravitational CP violating $\Theta$ parameter is non-perturbatively related to the cosmological constant.…
A superfield formulation is presented of the central charge anomaly in quantum corrections to solitons in two-dimensional theories with N=1 supersymmetry. Extensive use is made of the superfield supercurrent, that places the supercurrent…
We conjecture that in a consistent supergravity theory with non-vanishing gravitino mass, the limit $m_{3/2}\rightarrow 0$ is at infinite distance. In particular one can write $M_{\mathrm{tower}} \sim m_{3/2}^\delta$ so that as the…
String theory avoids the ultraviolet infinities that arise in trying to quantize gravity. It is also more predictive than conventional quantum field theory, one aspect of this being the way that it contributed to the emergence of the…
We extend the swampland from effective field theories (EFTs) inconsistent with quantum gravity to EFTs inconsistent with quantum supergravity. This enlarges the swampland to include EFTs that become inconsistent when the gravitino is…
In six dimensions, there is an exotic $\mathcal{N}=(4,0)$ supermultiplet that contains only fields of spin $\leq 2$, but no graviton, and that on a circle reduces to 5D $\mathcal{N}=4$ supergravity. It has been proposed that, if suitable…
A new heterotic N=2 string with manifest target space supersymmetry is constructed by combining a conventional N=2 string in the right-moving sector and a Green-Schwarz-Berkovits type string in the left-moving sector. The corresponding…
In spontaneously broken supergravity with non-flat potential the vanishing of the cosmological constant is usually associated with a non-trivial balancing of two opposite-sign contributions. We make the simple observation that, in an…
Motivated by the early discovery of the gigantic landscape of string theory vacua, in recent years people switched direction to try to find constraints on low energy effective field theories from UV-complete descriptions for example quantum…
We reanalyse the computation of the cosmological constant $\Lambda$ at two loops in recently proposed Superstring models without massless gravitini, both in the theta-function based formalism and by a detailed computation in the more…
Quantum gravity is studied nonperturbatively in the case in which space has a boundary with finite area. A natural set of boundary conditions is studied in the Euclidean signature theory, in which the pullback of the curvature to the…