Warped Throat Research Articles

Higher order corrections to KPV: The nonabelian brane stack perspective

In this work, we study the decay of D3¯\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$ \\overline{D3} $$\\end{document}-branes in the setup of Kachru, Pearson, and Verlinde (KPV) at higher order in α′ from the perspective of a nonabelian D3¯\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$ \\overline{D3} $$\\end{document}-brane stack. We extend the leading order analysis of KPV by including higher order commutators as well as higher derivative corrections. Recently, the KPV setup has been studied at higher order in α′ from the NS5-brane perspective. It was found that in order to control α′ corrections the quantity gsM2 determining the amount of warping in the Klebanov-Strassler throat has to be much larger than expected. This leads to serious issues when using the D3¯\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$ \\overline{D3} $$\\end{document}-branes as an uplift to dS. The benefit of the analysis in this work is that the D3¯\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$ \\overline{D3} $$\\end{document}-brane perspective is controlled when the distance between the branes inside the brane stack is substringy which is a regime not controlled on the NS5-brane side. As a main result, we find that the strong bound gsM2 ~ O\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$ \\mathcal{O} $$\\end{document}(100) obtained on the NS5-brane also holds in the regime accessible from the D3¯\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$ \\overline{D3} $$\\end{document}-brane perspective. We also show that the novel way of uplifting proposed in the recent work on α′ corrections to the KPV setup can only work for small warped throats.

D3¯\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$ \\overline{\ extrm{D}3} $$\\end{document}-branes and gaugino condensation

Anti-D3 branes at the bottom of warped throats, commonly used to uplift the cosmological constant in String-Theory de Sitter proposals, source a plethora of supersymmetry-breaking fluxes, that can interact nontrivially with other ingredients of the flux compactification. In this paper we perform a complex-structure decomposition of these fluxes, and compute the effect of the (0,3) flux component on the stabilization of Kähler moduli via D7-branes gaugino condensation. This allows us to obtain a new constraint on the validity of this stabilization mechanism. This effect does not appear hard to satisfy in de Sitter construction proposals that use long warped throats, but may be problematic in proposals where the warping is small.

Uplift and towers of states in warped throat

We investigate the connection between the distance conjecture and the uplift potential. For this purpose, we consider the concrete model, the warped deformed conifold embedded into Type IIB flux compactifications, with the uplift potential produced by overline{textrm{D}3} -branes at the tip of the throat. Whereas the various mass scales associated with towers of states can be found, it turns out that the lightest tower mass scale satisfies the scaling behavior with respect to the uplift potential, which is meaningful provided the number of overline{textrm{D}3} -branes is nonzero. This indicates that the effective theory becomes invalid in the vanishing limit of the uplift potential by the descent of an infinite tower of states from UV, as predicted in the distance conjecture. Since too large uplift potential is also problematic due to the runaway behavior of the moduli potential as well as the sizeable backreaction of overline{textrm{D}3} -branes, the uplift potential is bounded from both above and below. In the simple model like the KKLT or the large volume scenario in which non-perturbative effect is dominatd by the single term, this bound can be rewritten as the bound on the size of the superpotential.

On K3-fibred LARGE Volume Scenario with de Sitter vacua from anti-D3-branes

In the context of type IIB superstring compactifications on K3-fibred (weak) Swiss-cheese Calabi Yau (CY) orientifolds, we consider the realisation of de Sitter vacua obtained through the introduction of an overline{D3} -brane at the tip of a highly warped throat of Klebanov-Strassler type. Aiming to have a concrete global realisation, we perform a systematic search for the CY threefolds with 2 < h1,1< 5 arising from the Kreuzer-Skarke database, which satisfy the minimal requirements of being K3-fibred and suitable for moduli stabilisation within the LARGE Volume Scenario (LVS). In this context, after scanning the set of K3-fibred CY threefolds with a so-called diagonal del-Pezzo divisor needed for LVS, we realise that one of the main challenging requirements for having overline{D3} -brane uplifting is to find a suitable orientifold involution which can simultaneously result in a sufficient large D3 tadpole charge along with the presence of suitable O3-planes. In our detailed analysis (limited to) using the CY threefolds with small h1,1, we observe that these topological requirements rule out most of the CY geometries leading to only few possibly suitable candidates for the purpose of overline{D3} -brane uplifting. Subsequently, we present a global model using one such explicit K3-fibred CY threefold with h1,1 = 4 in which all the moduli can be consistently stabilised in a de Sitter minimum of the scalar potential.

The dark dimension in a warped throat

By combining swampland conjectures with observational data, it was suggested that our universe should lie in an asymptotic region of the quantum gravity landscape. The generalized distance conjecture for dS, the smallness of the cosmological constant and astrophysical constraints led to a scenario with one mesoscopic large dimension of size ℓ∼Λ−1/4∼10−6 m. We point out that a strongly warped throat with its redshifted KK tower provides a natural string theoretic mechanism that realizes the scaling m∼Λα with the factor α=1/4, the dark dimension being the one along the throat. We point out that in string theory it could be challenging to keep other KK towers heavy enough to avoid a conflict with astrophysical constraints on the number of extra large dimensions.

Joint statistics of cosmological constant and SUSY breaking in flux vacua with nilpotent Goldstino

We obtain the joint distribution of the gravitino mass and the cosmological constant in KKLT and LVS models with anti-D3 brane uplifting described via the nilpotent goldstino formalism. Moduli stabilisation (of both complex structure and Kähler moduli) is incorporated so that we sample only over points corresponding to vacua. Our key inputs are the distributions of the flux superpotential, the string coupling and the hierarchies of warped throats. In the limit of zero cosmological constant, we find that both in KKLT and LVS the distributions are tilted favourably towards lower scales of supersymmetry breaking.

Over-extremal brane shells from string theory?

We demonstrate that, if the usual phenomenological compactifications of IIB string theory with warped throats and anti-branes make sense, there must exist spherical brane shells in 4d that are overcharged. They correspond to classical over-extremal objects but without the usual naked singularities. The objects are made from D3-particles that puff into spherical five-branes that stabilise at finite radii in 4d and whose inside corresponds to the supersymmetric AdS vacuum. One can think of these shells as stabilised Brown–Teitelboim bubbles. We find that these objects can be significantly larger than the string scale depending on the details of the warped compactification.

Curvature corrections to KPV: do we need deep throats?

We consider α′2 curvature corrections to the action of an NS5-brane which plays the key role in the metastability analysis of warped anti-D3-brane uplifts by Kachru, Pearson and Verlinde (KPV). Such corrections can dramatically alter the KPV analysis. We find that for the α′2-corrections to be sufficiently small to recover essentially the leading-order KPV potential one needs a surprisingly large S3 radius, corresponding to gsM > 20. In the context of the Large Volume Scenario (LVS) this implies a D3-tadpole of at least (103–104). However, large α′2-corrections do not necessarily spoil the uplift in KPV. Rather, as the curvature corrections lower the tension of the brane, a novel uplifting mechanism suggests itself where the smallness of the uplift is achieved by a tuning of curvature corrections. A key underlying assumption is the existence of a dense discretuum of gs. This new mechanism does not require a deep warped throat, thereby sidestepping the main difficulty in uplifting KKLT and LVS. However, all of the above has to be treated as a preliminary exploration of possibilities since, at the moment, not all relevant corrections at the order α′2 are known.

Mass Hierarchies and Quantum Gravity Constraints in DKMM‐refined KKLT

AbstractWe carefully revisit the mass hierarchies for the KKLT scenario with an uplift term from an anti D3‐brane in a strongly warped throat. First, we derive the bound resulting from what is usually termed “the throat fitting into the bulk” directly from the Klebanov‐Strassler geometry. Generating the small value of the superpotential W0 via the mechanism proposed by Demirtas, Kim, McAllister and Moritz (DKMM), we identify two possible DKMM‐refined KKLT scenarios for stabilizing the light axio‐dilaton modulus. The first scenario spoils the expected hierarchy between the bulk and the throat mass scales and implies that the energy scale of the uplift is larger than the species scale of the effective theory in the throat. Moreover it requires an unnaturally large tadpole that is certainly in conflict with tadpole cancellation. For the less restricted second scenario, the hierarchy can be controlled at the expense of, under the most optimistic assumptions, an only moderately large tadpole .

Gravity at the tip of the throat

We study the gravitational signatures that arise from compactifying Type IIB supergravity on a compact space containing a Klebanov-Strassler warped throat. After reviewing the dimensional reduction of the 10d graviton and explicitly obtaining the equa- tions of motion for the 4d tensor hμν, vector hμn and scalar hmn modes, we find the masses and wavefunctions of the Kaluza-Klein tower of spin-2 states. We explore how the masses and wavefunctions depend on the balance between the strength of the warping and the size of the bulk, and how these relate to the range and strength of the interactions which correct the Newtonian gravitational potential. By computing the modified Newtonian potential for sources on a brane somewhere along the throat, and applying consistency constraints on the Klebanov-Strassler parameters, we obtain predictions for the phenomenological pa- rameter space. In the case of a fully warped throat, and depending on where the brane is along the throat, these predictions are narrow in range and consistent with current obser- vational and experimental constraints. We also begin an exploration of gravitational wave signatures of KK gravitons in warped throats, finding that strong warping can bring the corresponding frequencies down to the windows of current and proposed experiments.

Dark radiation and the Hagedorn phase

We point out that if the sector associated with the Standard Model degrees of freedom entered an open string Hagedorn phase in the early universe while the dark radiation sector was not part of this plasma, then this can lead to low values of the observable $\Delta N_{\text{eff}}$ (number of additional neutrinolike species) from the dark radiation. For explicit analysis, we focus on warped string compactifications with the Standard Model degrees of freedom at the bottom of a warped throat. If the Hubble scale during inflation is above the warped string scale associated with the throat, then the Standard Model sector will enter the Hagedorn phase. In this scenario, bulk axions are no longer dangerous from the point of view of dark radiation. While this article focuses on warped compactifications, the basic idea can be relevant to any scenario where the early universe entered a Hagedorn phase.

A new de Sitter solution with a weakly warped deformed conifold

We revisit moduli stabilisation for type IIB flux compactifications that include a warped throat region corresponding to a warped deformed conifold, with an anti-D3-brane sitting at its tip. The warping induces a coupling between the conifold’s deformation modulus and the bulk volume modulus in the Kähler potential. Previous works have studied the scalar potential assuming a strong warping such that this coupling term dominates, and found that the anti-D3-brane uplift may destabilise the conifold modulus and/or volume modulus, unless flux numbers within the throat are large, which makes tadpole cancellation a challenge. We explore the regime of parameter space corresponding to a weakly-but-still warped throat, such that the coupling between the conifold and volume moduli is subdominant. We thus discover a new metastable de Sitter solution within the four-dimensional effective field theory. We discuss the position of this de Sitter vacuum in the string theory landscape and swampland.

The tadpole problem

We examine the mechanism of moduli stabilization by fluxes in the limit of a large number of moduli. We conjecture that one cannot stabilize all complex-structure moduli in F-theory at a generic point in moduli space (away from singularities) by fluxes that satisfy the bound imposed by the tadpole cancellation condition. More precisely, while the tadpole bound in the limit of a large number of complex-structure moduli goes like 1/4 of the number of moduli, we conjecture that the amount of charge induced by fluxes stabilizing all moduli grows faster than this, and is therefore larger than the allowed amount. Our conjecture is supported by two examples: K3 × K3 compactifications, where by using evolutionary algorithms we find that moduli stabilization needs fluxes whose induced charge is 44% of the number of moduli, and Type IIB compactifications on mathbbm{CP} 3, where the induced charge of the fluxes needed to stabilize the D7-brane moduli is also 44% of the number of these moduli. Proving our conjecture would rule out de Sitter vacua obtained via antibrane uplift in long warped throats with a hierarchically small supersymmetry breaking scale, which require a large tadpole.

On de Sitter string vacua from anti-d3-branes in the large volume scenario

We consider de Sitter vacua realised in concrete type IIB Calabi-Yau compactifications with an anti D3-brane at the tip of a warped throat of Klebanov-Strassler type. The Kähler moduli are stabilised together with the complex structure modulus of the warped throat. The volume is exponentially large as in the large volume scenario (LVS). We analyse the conditions on the parameters of the EFT such that they are in the region of validity of our approximations, there are no runaway problems and the vacua satisfy all consistency constraints, such as tadpole cancellation. We illustrate our results with an explicit Calabi-Yau orientifold with two Kähler moduli and one antibrane on top of an O3-plane in a warped throat, that has the goldstino as its only massless state. The moduli are stabilised with gs∼ 0.2 and volume mathcal{V} ∼ 104 in string units, justifying the approximation used to derive the corresponding EFT. Although the model lacks chiral matter, it is presented as a proof of concept, chosen to be the simplest realisation of antibrane uplift.

Phase transitions from the fifth dimension

We study the cosmological transition of 5D warped compactifications, from the high-temperature black-brane phase to the low-temperature Randall-Sundrum I phase. The transition proceeds via percolation of bubbles of IR-brane nucleating from the black-brane horizon. The violent bubble dynamics can be a powerful source of observable stochastic gravitational waves. While bubble nucleation is non-perturbative in 5D gravity, it is amenable to semiclassical treatment in terms of a “bounce” configuration interpolating between the two phases. We demonstrate how such a bounce configuration can be smooth enough to maintain 5D effective field theory control, and how a simple ansatz for it places a rigorous lower-bound on the transition rate in the thin-wall regime, and gives plausible estimates more generally. When applied to the Hierarchy Problem, the minimal Goldberger-Wise stabilization of the warped throat leads to a slow transition with significant supercooling. We demonstrate that a simple generalization of the Goldberger-Wise potential modifies the IR-brane dynamics so that the transition completes more promptly. Supercooling determines the dilution of any (dark) matter abundances generated before the transition, potentially at odds with data, while the prompter transition resolves such tensions. We discuss the impact of the different possibilities on the strength of the gravitational wave signals. Via AdS/CFT duality the warped transition gives a theoretically tractable holographic description of the 4D Composite Higgs (de)confinement transition. Our generalization of the Goldberger-Wise mechanism is dual to, and concretely models, our earlier proposal in which the composite dynamics is governed by separate UV and IR RG fixed points. The smooth 5D bounce configuration we introduce complements the 4D dilaton/radion dominance derivation presented in our earlier work.

Non-supersymmetric string models from anti-D3-/D7-branes in strongly warped throats

This article discusses model-building scenarios including anti-D3-/D7-branes, in which supersymmetry is broken spontaneously, despite having no scale at which sparticles appear and standard supersymmetry is restored. If the branes are placed on singularities at the tip of warped throats in Calabi-Yau orientifold flux compactifications, they may give rise to realistic particle spectra, closed- and open-string moduli stabilisation with a Minkowski/de Sitter uplift, and a geometrical origin for the scale hierarchies. The paper derives the low-energy effective field theory description for such scenarios, i.e. a non-linear supergravity theory for standard and constrained supermultiplets, including soft supersymmetry-breaking matter couplings. The effect of closed-string moduli stabilisation on the open-string matter sector is worked out, incorporating non-perturbative and perturbative effects, and the mass and coupling hierarchies are computed with a view towards phenomenology.

Conifold dynamics and axion monodromies

It has recently been appreciated that the conifold modulus plays an important role in string-phenomenological set-ups involving warped throats, both by imposing constraints on model building and for obtaining a 10-dimensional picture of SUSY-breaking. In this note, we point out that the stability of the conifold modulus furthermore prevents large super-Planckian axion monodromy field ranges caused by brane-flux decay processes down warped throats. Our findings imply a significant challenge for concrete string theory embeddings of the inflationary flux-unwinding scenario.

Classical de Sitter solutions in three dimensions without tachyons?

We continue the study of compactifications of massive IIA supergravity on G2 orientifolds and demonstrate that breaking supersymmetry with anti-D2 and anti-D6 sources leads to 3d theories for which the typical tachyons haunting classical dS solutions can be absent. However for a concrete torus example the meta-stable dS window disappears after a quantization of fluxes and charges. We discuss the prospects of more general G2 compactifications and argue that they could potentially alleviate the tachyon problem by introducing larger tadpole numbers and warped throats. However, exactly those ingredients then seem to push the vacuum towards the brink of perturbative brane–flux decay in the open string sector. This is either a remarkable illustration of the no-dS swampland conjecture or such vacua live in very difficult to control regions of parameter space.

Fat inflatons, large turns and the η-problem

It is commonly believed that a successful period of inflation driven by a single or several scalar fields requires a specific hierarchy of masses given by Minf≪ H ≪ Mheavy, where Minf can correspond to several or a single light field and Mheavy corresponds to any heavy field that might be integrated out if it satisfies suitable conditions. This is at the heart of the so called η-problem in inflation, since large contributions to the masses of the inflatons might spoil the slow-roll conditions required for inflation. We show that, while this is an unavoidable conclusion in single field inflation, in multifield inflation, heavy fields as defined above, may be fully responsible for a successful period of what we call fat slow-roll inflation. Moreover we show that in this scenario, the turning rate of the inflationary trajectory, Ω/H, is larger than one. Thus, the η-problem is evaded with large turns in fat inflation. Depending on the perturbations' mass spectra, cosmological predictions will differ either slightly or largely with respect to those of the single field case. We illustrate this scenario in a concrete example in Type IIB string flux compactifications, where a probe D5-brane moving along the angular and radial directions in a warped throat drives fat D5-brane natural inflation. An instantaneous superplanckian decay constant can be defined, consistent with our low energy approximations. We compute the cosmological observables, which are consistent with Planck data, ameliorating the tension of single field natural inflation with observations. We also discuss fat inflation in the context of recently proposed swampland de Sitter conjectures.

On supersymmetry breaking vacua from D-branes at orientifold singularities

We present a large class of models of D-branes at (orientifold) Calabi-Yau sin- gularities which enjoy dynamical supersymmetry breaking at low energy, by means of either the SU(5) or 3–2 supersymmetry breaking models. Once embedded in a warped throat or, equivalently, in a large N theory, all models display an instability along a Coulomb branch direction towards supersymmetry preserving vacua. Interestingly, the nature of the run- away mechanism is model-independent and has a precise geometrical interpretation. This naturally suggests the properties a Calabi-Yau singularity should have in order for such instability not to occur.