(In)stability of de Sitter vacuum in light of distance conjecture and emergence proposal

Abstract

The distance conjecture claims that as the modulus traverses along the trans-Planckian geodesic distance, the effective field theory becomes invalid by a descent of a tower of states from UV. Moreover, according to the recent (strong version of) emergence proposal, the kinetic term of the modulus is entirely generated by the wavefunction renormalization in which a tower of states are integrated out. Assuming these two conjectures, we explore the role of a tower of states coupled to the modulus in (in)stability of the de Sitter (dS) vacuum by studying the one-loop effective potential generated by a tower of states. We find that a fermionic tower of states makes the effective potential more or less consistent with the dS swampland conjecture: either the slope or the curvature of the potential is sizeable. In contrast, the effective potential generated by a bosonic tower of states seems to allow the stable dS vacuum. Therefore, in order to argue the instability of the dS vacuum, the additional ingredient like supersymmetry breaking needs to be taken into account.