Related papers: Nothing is certain in string compactifications
Quantum consistency suggests that any de Sitter patch that lasts a number of Hubble times that exceeds its Gibbons-Hawking entropy divided by the number of light particle species suffers an effect of quantum breaking. Inclusion of other…
Based on the assumption that the target space duality ($T\to 1/T$) is preserved even nonperturbatively, the properties of static string vacua are studied. A discussion of the effective four-dimensional supergravity action based on…
We study toroidal compactifications of string theories which include compactification of a timelike coordinate. Some new features in the theory of toroidal compactifications arise. Most notably, Narain moduli space does not exist as a…
We show that $4$-dimensional Robertson-Walker spacetimes can be constructed for which all of the beta functions vanish to leading order, yielding consistent string theory without extra dimensions. We find that there is a unique static…
We study the spherical gravitational collapse of a compact object under the approximation that the radial pressure is identically zero, and the tangential pressure is related to the density by a linear equation of state. It turns out that…
The conditions for the cancellation of all gauge, gravitational, and mixed anomalies of $N=1$ supersymmetric models in six dimensions are reviewed and illustrated by a number of examples. Of particular interest are models that cannot be…
A rich pattern of gauge symmetries is found in the moduli space of heterotic string toroidal compactifications, at fixed points of the T-duality transformations. We analyze this pattern for generic tori, and scrutinize in full detail…
We point out that the moduli sector of the $(2,2)$ string compactification with its nonperturbatively preserved non-compact symmetries is a framework to study global topological defects. Based on the target space modular invariance of the…
We explore the gravitational collapse of a spherically symmetric dust cloud in the Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet gravity without a cosmological constant, and obtain three families of LTB-like solutions. It is shown that the Gauss-Bonnet term has a…
We consider string theory vacua with tadpoles for dynamical fields and uncover universal features of the resulting spacetime-dependent solutions. We argue that the solutions can extend only a finite distance $\Delta$ away in the spacetime…
We analyze the classical stable configurations of an extra-dimensional gauge theory, in which the extra dimensions are compactified on a torus. Depending on the particular choice of gauge group and the number of extra dimensions, the…
The compactification of 6 dimensional Salam-Sezgin model in the presence of 3-form flux H is investigated. We find a torus topology for this compactification with two cusps which are the places of branes, while at the limit of large size L…
We discuss two types of instabilities which may arise in string theory compactified to asymptotically AdS spaces: perturbative, due to discrete modes in the spectrum of the Laplacian, and non-perturbative, due to brane nucleation. In the…
We revisit the possibility of de Sitter vacua and slow-roll inflation in type II string theory at the level of the classical two-derivative supergravity approximation. Previous attempts at explicit constructions were plagued by ubiquitous…
We construct the intersecting non-supersymmetric (non-susy) D1/D5 solution of type IIB string theory. While, as usual, the solution is charged under an electric two-form and an electric six-form gauge field, it also contains a non-susy…
Recently, a geometric model for the confinement of magnetic charges in the context of type II string compactifications was constructed by Greene, Morrison and Vafa. This model assumes the existence of stable magnetic vortices with quantized…
We conjecture a general upper bound on the strength of gravity relative to gauge forces in quantum gravity. This implies, in particular, that in a four-dimensional theory with gravity and a U(1) gauge field with gauge coupling g, there is a…
It is known that if gauge conditions have Gribov zero modes, then topological symmetry is broken. In this paper we apply it to topological gravity in dimension $n \geq 3$. Our choice of the gauge condition for conformal invariance is…
The three tachyon-free non-supersymmetric string theories in ten dimensions provide a handle on quantum gravity away from the supersymmetric lamppost. However, they have not been shown to be fully consistent; although local anomalies cancel…
Magnetic flux plays an important role in compactifications of field and string theories in two ways, it generates a multiplicity of chiral fermion zero modes and it can break supersymmetry. We derive the complete four-dimensional effective…