The Boundary of Symmetric Moduli Spaces and the Swampland Distance Conjecture

Abstract

For non-compact, locally symmetric moduli spaces M, the set of geodesics and the geometry of the boundary can be completely characterised using group theory. In particular, geodesics that asymptote to a given infinite distance boundary point are characterised by a choice of rational parabolic subgroup P(Q) of the local isometry group G and an element of the Cartan subalgebra of P(Q). Under the assumption that M satisfies the "compactifiability" constraint of arXiv:2412.03640 and some mild conditions on the spectrum of states, we use this formalism to prove the Swampland Distance Conjecture for essentially all locally symmetric spaces M. We show that the states necessarily transform in some representation of G, and further that the convex hull encoding the exponential rate at which the leading tower of states becomes light is simply the convex hull of the weights of the representation. In a companion paper, we then use the formalism to classify all locally symmetric spaces and irreducible representations that are consistent with the Emergent String Conjecture.