Calculable toy model of the string-theory landscape

Journal Article · Fri Jul 15 04:00:00 EDT 2005 · Physical Review. D, Particles Fields

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.72.026005· OSTI ID:20711174

Dienes, Keith R ^[1]; Dudas, Emilian ^[2]; Gherghetta, Tony ^[3]

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1. Department of Physics, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721 (United States)
2. Centre de Physique Theorique, Ecole Polytechnique, F-91128, Palaiseau Cedex (France)
3. School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455 (United States)

Motivated by recent discussions of the string-theory landscape, we propose field-theoretic realizations of models with large numbers of vacua. These models contain multiple U(1) gauge groups, and can be interpreted as deconstructed versions of higher-dimensional gauge theory models with fluxes in the compact space. We find that the vacuum structure of these models is very rich, defined by parameter-space regions with different classes of stable vacua separated by boundaries. This allows us to explicitly calculate physical quantities such as the supersymmetry-breaking scale, the presence or absence of R symmetries, and probabilities of stable versus unstable vacua. Furthermore, we find that this landscape picture evolves with energy, allowing vacua to undergo phase transitions as they cross the boundaries between different regions in the landscape. We also demonstrate that supergravity effects are crucial in order to stabilize most of these vacua, and in order to allow the possibility of canceling the cosmological constant.

• OSTI ID: 20711174
• Journal Information: Physical Review. D, Particles Fields, Journal Name: Physical Review. D, Particles Fields Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 72; ISSN PRVDAQ; ISSN 0556-2821
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
COSMOLOGICAL CONSTANT
COSMOLOGY
GAUGE INVARIANCE
PHASE TRANSFORMATIONS
PROBABILITY
QUANTUM FIELD THEORY
SPACE
STRING MODELS
SUPERGRAVITY
SUPERSYMMETRY
SYMMETRY BREAKING
VACUUM STATES