Semiclassical stability of supergravity vacua

Journal Article · Tue Apr 01 04:00:00 EST 1997 · Physical Review, D

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.55.4822· OSTI ID:562343

Taylor-Robinson, M M ^[1]

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1. Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, University of Cambridge, Silver Street, Cambridge CB39EW (United Kingdom)

We discuss the existence of instantonic decay modes which would indicate a semiclassical instability of the vacua of 10- and 11-dimensional supergravity theories. Decay modes whose spin structures are incompatible with those of supersymmetric vacua have previously been constructed, and we present generalizations including those involving nontrivial dilaton and antisymmetric tensor fields. We then show that the requirement that any instanton describing supersymmetric vacuum decay should admit both a zero momentum hypersurface from which we describe the subsequent Lorentzian evolution and a spin structure at infinity compatible with the putative vacuum excludes all such decay modes, except those with unphysical energy-momentum tensors which violate the dominant energy condition. {copyright} {ital 1997} {ital The American Physical Society}

• OSTI ID: 562343
• Journal Information: Physical Review, D, Journal Name: Physical Review, D Journal Issue: 8 Vol. 55; ISSN PRVDAQ; ISSN 0556-2821
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

66 PHYSICS
DECAY
ENERGY-MOMENTUM TENSOR
INSTANTONS
MANY-DIMENSIONAL CALCULATIONS
MINKOWSKI SPACE
SEMICLASSICAL APPROXIMATION
SPIN
STABILITY
STRING MODELS
SUPERGRAVITY
SUPERSYMMETRY
VACUUM STATES