arXiv subjects

Keshav Dasgupta

Publications and source records attributed to Keshav Dasgupta.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Coherent states versus Glauber-Sudarshan States: Bootstrapping, Schwinger-Keldysh Contours and Lefschetz Thimbles

We investigate how, in a highly constrained system such as a four-dimensional diffeomorphism-invariant theory with vanishing bulk Hamiltonian and non-trivial interactions between the metric and additional degrees of freedom, transient excited states--called Glauber-Sudarshan states--can be constructed over supersymmetric minima. These states are generically non-supersymmetric and, although they are not minima of any potential, they admit positive-energy metric configurations that effectively mimic four-dimensional quasi-de Sitter backgrounds. We analyze how such states differ from conventional coherent states by studying their time evolution both in the canonical formalism--via boundary Hamiltonians--and in the in-in path-integral framework through Schwinger-Keldysh contours. We also examine the consistency of the construction across three complementary descriptions: the 1PI effective action, the Wilsonian (or exact renormalization group) effective action, and the Picard-Lefschetz (Lefschetz-thimble) decomposition of the Schwinger-Keldysh path integral, which provides the trans-series organization of the theory. In the presence of gauge-fixing and ghost sectors, we show that the dynamics of these transient configurations are governed by a nontrivial bootstrap relation that simultaneously constrains their behavior near supersymmetric Minkowski vacua and along quasi-de Sitter-like trajectories. Finally, we examine the Wheeler-DeWitt equation, the notion of time in the presence of transient excited states, and the emergence of the bulk Schrodinger equation. We further show that these states admit a natural structural interpretation analogous to the vertex operators that arise in the two-dimensional world-sheet formulation of string theory.

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arXiv2026

Towards Wedge Construction of Four-Dimensional Non-Supersymmetric Theories and Torsion Classes

Motivated by recent proposals relating non-supersymmetric Type 0A theory to M-theory compactified on a singular wedge geometry, we study an M-theory compactification on a seven-manifold with G_2 structure, realized as a deformed K3 fibration over a compact three-manifold. In the Morrison--Vafa limit, the deformed K3 may be described locally as a non-trivial torus fibration over a base that is itself a pinched circle fibered over an interval. Once the doubled-spectrum decomposition and the local pinched structure are specified, we show that the G_2 torsion classes provide a natural and efficient way to characterize both the torsion of the seven-manifold and the resulting supersymmetry breaking in four dimensions. Reducing the system to ten dimensions in two inequivalent ways leads respectively to Type 0A and Type 0 heterotic theories compactified on two different non-Kahler manifolds, for which the SU(3) torsion classes furnish the appropriate mathematical description. In particular, we argue that the pinching deformation lies in the 27 of G_2, and that under the two reductions it is distributed differently into the W_2 and W_3 torsion classes of the corresponding SU(3) structures. In the supersymmetric limit, and under suitable assumptions, the two resulting theories may become U-dual to one another. Away from that limit, however, we argue that any such duality should be treated with considerable caution.

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arXiv2025

Transient de Sitter and Quasi de Sitter States in SO(32) and E_8 x E_8 Heterotic String Theories

One of the long-standing puzzles in string theory has been on the existence of a four-dimensional de Sitter and quasi de Sitter configurations, the latter being defined with a temporally varying dark energy, in E_8 x E_8 and SO(32) heterotic theories. In this work, novel dynamical duality-sequences are devised that provide natural constructions of de Sitter and quasi de Sitter excited states in the aforementioned theories allowing no late-time singularities. The emergent positive dark energies -- including the intriguing possibility of their slow temporal variations -- appear from Borel resumming Gevrey series from the path-integral representations of such states. Additionally, precise ways to handle the equations of motion, Bianchi identities, flux quantizations and anomaly cancellations -- consistent with the underlying axionic cosmology, with the temporal dependence, and with the probability of forming wormholes that connect baby universes -- are presented for the SO(32) and the E_8 x E_8 theories within a framework that systematically incorporates perturbative and non-perturbative corrections in the far infrared. The temporally varying dark energy, which is much more natural in our set-up because of its emergent nature, surprisingly simplifies many of the aforementioned computations. Interestingly, our analysis also provides, probably for the first time, a set-up to consistently embed four-dimensional standard model degrees of freedom at late time in a realistic gravitational background with positive dark energy from string theory.

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arXiv2024

de Sitter Excited State in Heterotic E_8 x E_8 Theory

We devise a novel duality sequence to study late-time cosmology in the heterotic E_8 x E_8 setup of Horava and Witten with dynamical walls that are moving towards each other. Surprisingly, we find that the dimensionally reduced four-dimensional theory does not violate NEC and therefore we do not see either a bouncing or an ekpyrotic phase. Instead, our four-dimensional setup shows a transient de Sitter phase that lies well within the trans-Planckian bound. This opens up a myriad of possibilities of addressing both phenomenological and cosmological issues, and here we concentrate on one such interesting model, an axionic cosmology with temporally varying axionic coupling.

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arXiv2024

Wheeler-De Witt equation and the Canonical Construction of the Glauber-Sudarshan States in Quantum Gravity

Quantum gravity is fundamentally different from the non-gravitational quantum field theories in the sense that most of the techniques derived for the latter cannot be easily extended to the former. For example, correlation functions in quantum gravity become hard to define properly if the bulk Hamiltonian -- in the absence of a boundary Hamiltonian, and as a consequence of the Wheeler-De Witt equation -- itself annihilates the states thus rendering the evolution operators to identities. An even harder problem is the back reactions of the fluctuations on the background itself. We argue that the construction of the Glauber-Sudarshan states takes care of these two issues in rather interesting ways. For the former, the displacement operators are defined at every instant of time, without directly invoking the Hamiltonian, so that they naturally extend to the path-integral description as sum over histories. For the latter, the back reactions of the fluctuations are carefully accounted for by the Schwinger-Dyson equations. In fact these back reactions are in part responsible to convert the ambient supersymmetric Minkowski background to a transient de Sitter phase. Expectedly this transient de Sitter phase is defined well within the validity regime of the trans-Planckian bound.

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arXiv2024

Collective field theory of gauged multi-matrix models: Integrating out off-diagonal strings

We study a two-matrix toy model with a BFSS-like interaction term using the collective field formalism. The main technical simplification is obtained by gauge-fixing first, and integrating out the off-diagonal elements, before changing to the collective field variable. We show that the resulting $(2+1)$-dimensional collective field action has novel features with respect to non-locality, and that we need to add a mass term to get a time-local potential. As is expected, one recovers the single matrix quantum mechanical collective field Hamiltonian in the proper limit.

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arXiv2024

Glauber-Sudarshan States, Wave Functional of the Universe and the Wheeler-De Witt equation

One of the pertinent question in the analysis of de Sitter as an excited state is what happens to the Glauber-Sudarshan states that are off-shell, i.e. the states that do not satisfy the Schwinger-Dyson equations. We argue that these Glauber-Sudarshan states, including the on-shell ones, are controlled by a bigger envelope wave functional namely a wave functional of the universe which surprisingly satisfies a Wheeler-De Witt equation. We provide various justification of the aforementioned identification including the determination of the emergent Hamiltonian constraint appearing in the Wheeler-De Witt equation that is satisfied by both the on- and off-shell states. Our analysis provides further evidence of why a transient four-dimensional de Sitter phase in string theory should be viewed as an excited state over a supersymmetric warped Minkowski background and not as a vacuum state.

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arXiv2024

What if string theory has a de Sitter excited state?

We propose precise effective field theory criteria to obtain a four-dimensional de Sitter space within M-theory. To this effect, starting with the state space described by the action of metric perturbations, fluxes etc over the supersymmetric Minkowski vacuum in eleven-dimensions, we discuss the most general low energy effective action in terms of the eleven-dimensional fields including non-perturbative and non-local terms. Given this, our criteria to obtain a valid four-dimensional de Sitter solution at far IR involve satisfying the Schwinger-Dyson equations of the associated path integral, as well as obeying positivity constraints on the dual IIA string coupling and its time derivative. For excited states, the Schwinger-Dyson equations imply an effective emergent potential different from the original potential. We show that while vacuum solutions and arbitrary coherent states fail to satisfy these criteria, a specific class of excited states called the Glauber-Sudarshan states obey them. Using the resurgent structure of observables computed using the path integral over the Glauber-Sudarshan states, four-dimensional de Sitter in the flat slicing can be constructed using a Glauber-Sudarshan state in M-theory. Among other novel results, we discuss the smallness of the positive cosmological constant, including the curious case where the cosmological constant is very slowly varying with time. We also discuss the resolution of identity with the Glauber-Sudarshan states, generation and the convergence properties of the non-perturbative and the non-local effects, the problems with the static patch and other related topics. We analyze briefly the issues related to the compatibility of the Wilsonian effective action with Borel resummations and discuss how they influence the effective field theory description in a four-dimensional de Sitter space.

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arXiv2023

Resurgence of a de Sitter Glauber-Sudarshan State: Nodal Diagrams and Borel Resummation

We show that an explicit construction of a four-dimensional de Sitter space may be performed using a diagrammatic approach via nodal diagrams emanating from the path integral representation of the Glauber-Sudarshan state. Sum of these diagrams typically leads to an asymptotic series of Gevrey kind which can then be Borel resummed, thus reproducing the non-perturbative structure of the system. Our analysis shows that four-dimensional de Sitter space is not only possible in string theory overcoming the no-go and the swampland criteria -- albeit as a Glauber-Sudarshan state -- but it may also be non-perturbatively stable within a controlled temporal domain. Somewhat consistently, the Borel resummation of the Gevrey series provides strong hint towards the positivity of the cosmological constant.

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arXiv2023

Coherent States in M-Theory: A Brane Scan using the Taub-NUT

The Taub-NUT geometry corresponds to the Kaluza-Klein monopole solution of M-theory and on dimension reduction along the Taub-NUT circle direction it becomes the D6 brane of type IIA string theory. We show that the Taub-NUT geometry can be realised as a coherent state, or more appropriately as a Glauber-Sudarshan state in M-theory, once we take the underlying resurgence structure carefully. Using the duality chain it in turn implies that all D-branes as well as NS5-branes can be realised as Glauber-Sudarshan states in string theory. Our analysis also leads to an intriguing possibility of realizing the gravity duals of certain non-conformal minimally-supersymmetric gauge theories by deforming a class of Glauber-Sudarshan states.

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arXiv2023

de Sitter State in Heterotic String Theory

Recent no-go theorems have ruled out four-dimensional classical de Sitter vacua in heterotic string theory. On the other hand, the absence of a well-defined Wilsonian effective action and other related phenomena also appear to rule out such time-dependent vacua with de Sitter isometries, even in the presence of quantum corrections. In this note, we argue that a four-dimensional de Sitter space can still exist in SO(32) heterotic string theory as a Glauber-Sudarshan state, i.e. as a coherent state, over a supersymmetric Minkowski background, albeit within a finite temporal domain. Borel resummation and resurgence play a crucial role in constructing such a state in the Hilbert space of heterotic theory governed entirely by the IR degrees of freedom.

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arXiv2021

The four-dimensional null energy condition as a swampland conjecture

We analyze four-dimensional Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker cosmologies in type IIB, arising from a M-theory dual, and find that the null energy condition (NEC) has to be obeyed by them (except for the negatively curved case) in order for the M-theory action to have a Wilsonian effective description. However, this does not imply that the M-theory metric has to obey the 11d NEC. Thus, we propose a new swampland conjecture -- the 4d NEC is a consistency condition for any theory to have a completion within M-theory -- with an explicit derivation of it for cosmological backgrounds from a top-down perspective. We briefly discuss the cosmological consequences of such a condition derived from M-theory.

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arXiv2021

de Sitter Space as a Glauber-Sudarshan State: II

We provide further evidence to support the fact that a four-dimensional effective field theory description with de Sitter isometries in IIB string theory, overcoming the no-go and the swampland criteria, can only exist if de Sitter space is realized as a Glauber-Sudarshan state. We show here that this result is independent of the choice of de Sitter slicings. The Glauber-Sudarshan state, constructed by shifting the interacting vacuum in the M-theory uplift of the scenario, differs from a standard coherent state in QFT in the sense that the shape and size of the state changes with respect to time, implying changes in the graviton and the flux quanta. Despite this, the expectation values of the graviton and flux operators in such a state reproduce the exact de Sitter background, as long as we are within the temporal bound set by the onset of the strong coupling in the dual type IIA side, and satisfy the corresponding Schwinger-Dyson's equations in the presence of hierarchically controlled perturbative and non-perturbative quantum corrections. Additionally, we provide a detailed study of the fluxes supporting the Glauber-Sudarshan state in the M-theory uplift of the IIB scenario. We show explicitly how the Bianchi identities, anomaly cancellation and flux quantization conditions, along-with the constraints from the Schwinger-Dyson's equations, conspire together to provide the necessary temporal dependences to support such a state in full M-theory. We also discuss how our analysis points towards a surprising connection to the four-dimensional null energy condition, for a Friedman-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker state in the IIB side, as a consistency condition for the existence of an effective field theory description in M-theory.

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arXiv2021

de Sitter Vacua in the String Landscape

The late-time behavior of our universe is one of accelerated expansion, or that of a de Sitter space, and therefore motivates us to look for time-dependent backgrounds. Finding such backgrounds in string theory has always been a challenging problem. An even harder problem is to find time-dependent backgrounds that allow positive dark energies. As a first step to handle such scenarios, we study a time-dependent background in type IIB theory, with four-dimensional de Sitter isometries, by uplifting it to M-theory and then realizing it as a coherent, or squeezed-coherent, state over an appropriate solitonic configuration. While classically such a background does not solve the equations of motion, the corresponding Schwinger-Dyson equations reveal that there are deeper issues that may even prohibit a solution to exist at the quantum level, as long as the internal space remains time-independent. A more generic analysis is then called for, where both the effective four-dimensional space-time, the internal space, and the background fluxes are all time-dependent. We study in details such a background by including perturbative and non-perturbative as well as local and non-local quantum terms. Our analysis reveals a distinct possibility of the emergence of a four-dimensional positive curvature space-time with de Sitter isometries and time-independent Newton's constant in the landscape of type IIB string theory. We argue how the no-go and the swampland criteria are avoided in generating such a background, and compare it with other possibilities involving backgrounds with time-dependent Newton constants. These time-varying Newton constant backgrounds typically lead to unavoidable late time singularities, amongst other issues.

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arXiv2021

Purely non-perturbative AdS vacua and the swampland

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 this paper, we examine the anti-de Sitter vacua corresponding to solutions which arise from purely non-perturbative contributions to the superpotential and show that these solutions satisfy the (axionic) weak gravity conjecture and the AdS-moduli scale separation conjecture. We also sketch out their advantages over other constructions.

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arXiv2021

de Sitter Space as a Glauber-Sudarshan State

Glauber-Sudarshan states, sometimes simply referred to as Glauber states, or alternatively as coherent and squeezed-coherent states, are interesting states in the configuration spaces of any quantum field theories, that closely resemble classical trajectories in space-time. In this paper, we identify four-dimensional de Sitter space as a coherent state over a supersymmetric Minkowski vacuum. Although such an identification is not new, what is new however is the claim that this is realizable in full string theory, but only in conjunction with temporally varying degrees of freedom and quantum corrections resulting from them. Furthermore, fluctuations over the de Sitter space is governed by a generalized graviton (and flux)-added coherent state, also known as the Agarwal-Tara state. The realization of de Sitter space as a state, and not as a vacuum, resolves many issues associated with its entropy, zero-point energy and trans-Planckian censorship, amongst other things.

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arXiv2020

Crisis on Infinite Earths: Short-lived de Sitter Vacua in the String Theory Landscape

We construct purely non-perturbative anti-de Sitter vacua in string theory which, on uplifting to a de Sitter (dS) one, have a decay time many orders of magnitude smaller than those of standard constructions, such as the KKLT and LVS scenarios. By virtue of being constructed purely from non-perturbative terms, these vacua avoids certain obstructions plaguing other constructions of dS in string theory. This results in a new class of phenomenological dS vacua in string theory with novel distinctive characteristics such as having two maxima. After examining whether these uplifted dS vacua obey the TCC, we revisit some old problems of realization of dS space as a vacuum. We find that not only is it phenomenologically hard to construct TCC-compatible vacua, but also inherent temporal dependences of the degrees of freedom generically arise in such constructions, amongst other issues. This reinforces the idea that dS, if it exists in string theory, should be a Glauber-Sudarshan state and not a vacuum.

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arXiv2020

Reheating after S-Brane Ekpyrosis

In recent work, two of us proposed a nonsingular Ekpyrotic cosmology making use of an S-brane which forms at the end of the phase of Ekpyrotic contraction. This S-Brane mediates a transition between contraction and expansion. Graviitational waves passing through the S-Brane acquire a roughly scale-invariant spectrum, and if the S-Brane has zero shear, then a roughly scale-invariant spectrum of cosmological perturbatiions results. Here, we study the production of gauge field fluctuations driven by the decay of the S-Brane, and we show that the reheating process via gauge field production will be efficient, leading to a radiation-dominated expanding phase.

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