Related papers: The Fall of Stringy de Sitter
We study general aspects of NS5-brane instantons in relation to the stabilization of the volume modulus in Calabi-Yau compactifications of type II strings with fluxes, and their orientifold versions. These instantons correct the Kahler…
We consider IIA compactifications on solvmanifolds with O6/D6 branes and study the conditions for obtaining de Sitter vacua in ten dimensions. While this is a popular set-up for searching de Sitter vacua, we propose a new method to include…
We derive the 3D N=1 superpotential for the closed string sector of type IIB supergravity on toroidal O5 orientifolds with co-calibrated G2 structure and RR background flux. We find that such compactifications can provide full closed string…
In this paper we study non-perturbative instabilities in Anti de-Sitter vacua arising from flux compactifications of string models with broken supersymmetry. In the semi-classical limit, these processes drive the vacua towards lower fluxes,…
Recently it has been conjectured that string theory does not allow for dS vacua or dS extrema. To scrutinize such a conjecture, it is important to study concrete string theory compactifications and spell out their assumptions and potential…
Motivated by the recently proposed bounds on the slow-roll parameters for scalar potentials arising from string/M-theory compactifications, a.k.a. the Refined de Sitter Swampland conjecture, we explore the sharpness of such constraints…
We revisit the classical theory of ten-dimensional two-derivative gravity coupled to fluxes, scalar fields, D-branes, anti D-branes and Orientifold-planes. We show that such set-ups do not give rise to a four-dimensional positive curvature…
We consider the dynamics of p anti-D3 branes inside the Klebanov-Strassler geometry, the deformed conifold with M units of RR 3-form flux around the S^3. We find that for p<<M the system relaxes to a nonsupersymmetric NS 5-brane ``giant…
In this note, we review our construction of de Sitter vacua in type IIB flux compactifications, in which moduli stabilization and D-term uplifting can be combined consistently with the supergravity constraints. Here, the closed string…
We explicitly construct and study the statistics of flux vacua for type IIB string theory on an orientifold of the Calabi-Yau hypersurface $P^4_{[1,1,2,2,6]}$, parametrised by two relevant complex structure moduli. We solve for these moduli…
The moduli of N=1 compactifications of IIB string theory can be stabilized by a combination of fluxes (which freeze complex structure moduli and the dilaton) and nonperturbative superpotentials (which freeze Kahler moduli), typically…
We study M-theory compactification on ${\mathbb{T}^7/ \mathbb{Z}_2^3}$ in the presence of a seven-flux, metric fluxes and KK monopoles. The effective four-dimensional supergravity has seven chiral multiplets whose couplings are specified by…
We extend a recent scenario of Kachru, Kallosh, Linde and Trivedi to fix the string moduli fields by using a combination of fluxes and non-perturbative superpotentials, leading to de Sitter vacua. In our scenario the non-perturbative…
We investigate the correspondence between existence/stability of BPS states in type II string theory compactified on a Calabi-Yau manifold and BPS solutions of four dimensional N=2 supergravity. Some paradoxes emerge, and we propose a…
We study the possibility of obtaining metastable de Sitter vacua of heterotic string theory compactified on a Calabi-Yau threefold which are classical and simple in the K\"ahler moduli sector of the theory. For this, we exploit a known…
We study string loop corrections to the gravity kinetic terms in type IIB compactifications on Calabi-Yau threefolds or their orbifold limits, in the presence of $D7$-branes and orientifold planes. We show that they exhibit in general a…
De Sitter solutions have been recently conjectured to be incompatible with quantum gravity. In this paper we critically assess the progress and challenges of different mechanisms to obtain de Sitter vacua in string compactifications and…
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…
The possible existence of (meta-) stable de Sitter vacua in string theory is of fundamental importance. So far, there are no fully stable solutions where all effects are under perturbative control. In this paper we investigate the presence…
We derive a sufficient condition for realizing meta-stable de Sitter vacua with small positive cosmological constant within type IIB string theory flux compactifications with spontaneously broken supersymmetry. There are a number of `lamp…