arXiv subjects

Timm Wrase

Publications and source records attributed to Timm Wrase.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2022

Type IIB flux compactifications with $h^{1,1}=0$

We revisit flux compactifications of type IIB string theory on `spaces' dual to rigid Calabi-Yau manifolds. This rather unexplored part of the string landscapes harbors many interesting four-dimensional solutions, namely supersymmetric $\mathcal{N}=1$ Minkowski vacua without flat direction and infinite families of AdS vacua, some potentially with unrestricted rank for the gauge group. We also comment on the existence of metastable dS solutions in this setup. We discuss how these solutions fit into the web of swampland conjectures.

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arXiv2022

Comments on classical AdS flux vacua with scale separation

AdS flux vacua with a parametric separation between the AdS and KK scales have been conjectured to be in the Swampland. We study flux compactifications of massive IIA supergravity with O6 planes which are claimed to allow moduli-stabilised and scale separated AdS$_3$ and AdS$_4$ vacua at arbitrary weak coupling and large volume. A recent refinement of the AdS Distance Conjecture is shown to be inconsistent with the class of AdS$_3$ vacua because the requisite discrete higher form symmetries are absent. We further perform a tree-level study of non-perturbative decays for the nonsupersymmetric versions of the AdS$_3$ solutions, and find that the vacua are stable within this approximation. Finally, we provide an initial investigation of the would-be dual CFT$_2$'s and CFT$_3$'s. We study roughly a dozen different models and find for all AdS$_4$ DGKT-type vacua that the dual operators to the lightest scalars have integer dimensions. For the putative CFT$_2$ dual theories of the AdS$_3$ vacua we find no integer dimensions for the operators.

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arXiv2021

IIB String Theory and Sequestered Inflation

We develop sequestered inflation models, where inflation occurs along flat directions in supergravity models derived from type IIB string theory. It is compactified on a ${\mathbb{T}^6 \over \mathbb{Z}_2 \times \mathbb{Z}_2}$ orientifold with generalized fluxes and O3/O7-planes. At Step I, we use flux potentials which 1) satisfy tadpole cancellation conditions and 2) have supersymmetric Minkowski vacua with flat direction(s). The 7 moduli are split into heavy and massless Goldstone multiplets. At Step II we add a nilpotent multiplet and uplift the flat direction(s) of the type IIB string theory to phenomenological inflationary plateau potentials: $α$-attractors with 7 discrete values $3α= 1, 2, 3, ..., 7$. Their cosmological predictions are determined by the hyperbolic geometry inherited from string theory. The masses of the heavy fields and the volume of the extra dimensions change during inflation, but this does not affect the inflationary dynamics.

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arXiv2021

Sequestered Inflation

We construct supergravity models allowing to sequester the phenomenology of inflation from the Planckian energy scale physics. The procedure consists of two steps: At Step I we study supergravity models, which might be associated with string theory or M-theory, and have supersymmetric Minkowski vacua with flat directions. At Step II we uplift these flat directions to inflationary plateau potentials. We find certain conditions which ensure that the superheavy fields involved in the stabilization of the Minkowski vacua at Step I are completely decoupled from the inflationary phenomenology.

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arXiv2021

Scale-separated AdS$_4$ vacua of IIA orientifolds and M-theory

We revisit various aspects of AdS$_4$ flux vacua with scale separation in type II supergravity and M-theory. We show that massless IIA allows both weakly and strongly coupled solutions for which the classical orientifold backreaction can be tuned small. This is explicitly verified by computing the backreaction at leading order in perturbation theory. We give evidence that the strongly coupled solutions can be lifted to scale-separated and sourceless (but classically singular) geometries in 11D supergravity.

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arXiv2021

Misaligned Supersymmetry and Open Strings

The study of non-supersymmetric string theories is shedding light on an important corner of the string landscape and might ultimately explain why, so far, we did not observe supersymmetry in our universe. We review how misaligned supersymmetry in closed-string theories leads to a cancellation between bosons and fermions even in non-supersymmetric string theories. We then show that the same cancellation takes place for open strings by studying an anti-D$p$-brane placed on top of an O$p$-plane in type II string theory. Misaligned supersymmetry consists in cancellations between bosons and fermions at \emph{different} energy levels, in such a way that the averaged number of states grows at a rate dominated by a factor $\mathrm{e}^{C_{\mathrm{eff}}\sqrt{n}}$, with $C_{\mathrm{eff}}<C_{\mathrm{tot}}$, where $C_{\mathrm{tot}}$ is the inverse Hagedorn temperature. We prove the previously conjectured complete cancellation, i.e. we prove that $C_{\mathrm{eff}}=0$, for a vast class of models.

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arXiv2020

Intricacies of classical de Sitter string backgrounds

Up-to-date, there is no known example of a classical de Sitter solution of string theory, despite several good candidates. We consider here two newly discovered 10d supergravity de Sitter solutions, and analyse in great detail whether they can be promoted to classical string backgrounds. To that end, we identify five requirements to be met, and develop the necessary 10d tools to test the solutions. Eventually, they both fail to verify simultaneously all requirements, in spite of positive partial results. The explicit values obtained offer a clear illustration of the situation, and the analysis highlights various subtleties. We finally discuss the relation to the problem of scale separation.

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arXiv2020

New de Sitter solutions of 10d type IIB supergravity

We find and study 17 new de Sitter solutions of ten-dimensional (10d) type IIB supergravity with intersecting D5-branes and orientifold O5-planes, as well as a new Minkowski one. These solutions are obtained numerically on 6d group manifolds, the compactness of which is established for 4 of them. We show that all our de Sitter solutions are perturbatively unstable, using a restricted 4d effective theory of four scalar fields. We finally analyse whether our solutions can be promoted to classical string backgrounds. Several of them appear as good candidates, as they satisfy all requirements imposed so far.

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arXiv2020

Non-supersymmetric branes

We discuss how to incorporate non-supersymmetric branes in compactifications of type II string theories. We particularly focus on flux compactifications on $SU(3)\times SU(3)$ structure manifolds to four dimensions, so that a linear $\mathcal{N}=1$ supersymmetry is spontaneously broken by spacetime filling Dp-branes. Anti-Dp-branes are a very special subset of such branes but our analysis is generic. We show that the backreaction of non-supersymmetric branes can be incorporated into the standard 4d $\mathcal{N}=1$ supergravity by including a nilpotent chiral multiplet. Supersymmetry in such setups is always spontaneously broken and non-linearly realized. In particular this means that, contrary to what was previously thought, brane supersymmetry breaking cannot be simply described by a D-term in 4d $\mathcal{N}=1$ supergravity theories.

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arXiv2019

Uplifting Anti-D6-brane

A simple, KKLT-like construction of de Sitter vacua in type IIA string theory is presented in an STU model with guidance from string theory U-duality and with an uplifting anti-D6-brane. In four dimensions the model is reduced to $\mathcal{N}=1$ supergravity with three chiral multiplets, namely $S$, $T$ and $U$, as well as one nilpotent multiplet representing the anti-D6-brane.

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arXiv2019

Dyonic black hole degeneracies in $\mathcal{N} = 4$ string theory from Dabholkar-Harvey degeneracies

The degeneracies of single-centered dyonic $\frac14$-BPS black holes (BH) in Type II string theory on K3$\times T^2$ are known to be coefficients of certain mock Jacobi forms arising from the Igusa cusp form $Φ_{10}$. In this paper we present an exact analytic formula for these BH degeneracies purely in terms of the degeneracies of the perturbative $\frac12$-BPS states of the theory. We use the fact that the degeneracies are completely controlled by the polar coefficients of the mock Jacobi forms, using the Hardy-Ramanujan-Rademacher circle method. Here we present a simple formula for these polar coefficients as a quadratic function of the $\frac12$-BPS degeneracies. We arrive at the formula by using the physical interpretation of polar coefficients as negative discriminant states, and then making use of previous results in the literature to track the decay of such states into pairs of $\frac12$-BPS states in the moduli space. Although there are an infinite number of such decays, we show that only a finite number of them contribute to the formula. The phenomenon of BH bound state metamorphosis (BSM) plays a crucial role in our analysis. We show that the dyonic BSM orbits with $U$-duality invariant $Δ<0$ are in exact correspondence with the solution sets of the Brahmagupta-Pell equation, which implies that they are isomorphic to the group of units in the order $\mathbb{Z}[\sqrt{|Δ|}]$ in the real quadratic field $\mathbb{Q}(\sqrt{|Δ|})$. We check our formula against the known numerical data arising from the Igusa cusp form, for the first 1650 polar coefficients, and find perfect agreement.

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arXiv2019

The supersymmetric anti-D3-brane action in KKLT

An anti-D3-brane plays a crucial role in the construction of semi-realistic cosmological models in string theory. Part of its action provides an uplift term that has been used to lift AdS solutions to phenomenologically viable dS vacua in the KKLT and LVS setups. In the last few years it has been shown that this uplift breaks supersymmetry spontaneously and can be described in the 4d $\mathcal{N}=1$ supergravity language by using constrained supermultiplets. Here we derive the complete 4d $\mathcal{N}=1$ supergravity action for an anti-D3-brane coupled to all closed string background fields. In particular we include the vector field, the scalar fields and all fermions that live on the anti-D3-brane.

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arXiv2019

dS Supergravity from 10d

We consider flux compactification of type II string theory with local sources on SU(3)-structure manifolds. By adding pseudo-calibrated anti-$Dp$-branes wrapped on supersymmetric cycles we generalize all existing models so that the effective $d=4,$ ${\cal N}=1$ supergravity now includes a nilpotent multiplet. We present a new dictionary between string theory models and K{ä}hler potential $K$ and superpotential $W$ for these dS supergravities with a nilpotent multiplet and non-linearly realized local supersymmetry. In addition to KKLT and LVS with uplifting $\overline{D3}$-branes, we have now new models with uplifting $\overline{D5}$, $\overline{D6}$, $\overline{D7}$, $\overline{D9}$-branes. The new uplifting contribution to the supergravity potential due to Volkov-Akulov supersymmetry is universal. As one application of our general result, we study classical flux compactifications of type IIA supergravity and find that a previously discovered universal tachyon is now absent.

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arXiv2019

Scaling limits of dS vacua and the swampland

We discuss the properties of massive type IIA flux compactifications. In particular, we investigate in which case one can obtain dS vacua at large volume and small coupling. We support a general discussion of scaling symmetries with the analysis of a concrete example. We find that the large volume and weak coupling limit requires a large number of O6-planes. Since these are bound for any given compactification space one cannot get arbitrarily good control over $α'$ and string loop corrections.

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arXiv2018

The asymptotic dS Swampland Conjecture - a simplified derivation and a potential loophole

Recently, arguments for a refined de Sitter conjecture were put forward in arXiv:1810.05506. Using the large distance conjecture of arXiv:hep-th/0605264, the authors provide evidence for this dS conjecture in asymptotic regimes of field space, where the parametric control of string theory becomes arbitrarily good. Their main tool is Bousso's covariant entropy bound arXiv:hep-th/9905177. Here, we present a simpler way to reach a similar conclusion. The argument is based on the fact that the cutoff of an effective theory with gravity decreases as the number of species grows. We then discuss a loophole in this argument and its possible counterpart in the assumptions underlying the entropy-based derivation. The idea is to consider potentials which, while they remain below an exponentially falling bound, have small oscillations leading locally to relatively flat regions or even to an infinite series of dS minima.

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arXiv2018

The dS swampland conjecture and the Higgs potential

According to a conjecture recently put forward in arXiv:1806.08362, the scalar potential $V$ of any consistent theory of quantum gravity satisfies a bound $|\nabla V|/V \geq {\cal O}(1)$. This forbids dS solutions and supports quintessence models of cosmic acceleration. Here we point out that in the simplest models incorporating the Standard Model in addition to quintessence, with the two sectors decoupled as suggested by observations, the proposed bound is violated by 50 orders of magnitude. However, a very specific coupling between quintessence and just the Higgs sector may still be allowed and consistent with the conjecture.

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arXiv2018

de Sitter extrema and the swampland

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 shortcomings. We do so for one particular class of string compactifications, namely classical compactifications of type II string theory with fluxes, D-branes and O-planes on manifolds with SU(3) structure. In particular, we revisit previously found dS critical points, construct many new ones and check whether they invalidate the dS swampland conjecture.

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arXiv2018

Calabi-Yau manifolds and sporadic groups

A few years ago a connection between the elliptic genus of the K3 manifold and the largest Mathieu group M$_{24}$ was proposed. We study the elliptic genera for Calabi-Yau manifolds of larger dimensions and discuss potential connections between the expansion coefficients of these elliptic genera and sporadic groups. While the Calabi-Yau 3-fold case is rather uninteresting, the elliptic genera of certain Calabi-Yau $d$-folds for $d>3$ have expansions that could potentially arise from underlying sporadic symmetry groups. We explore such potential connections by calculating twined elliptic genera for a large number of Calabi-Yau 5-folds that are hypersurfaces in weighted projected spaces, for a toroidal orbifold and two Gepner models.

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