Branes and the swampland
Completeness of the spectrum of charged branes in a quantum theory of gravity naturally motivates the question of whether the consistency of what lives on the branes can be used to explain some of the swampland conditions. In this paper, we focus on consistency of what lives on string probes to show that some of the theories with N = (1,0) supersymmetry in ten dimensions and six dimensions, which are otherwise consistent looking, belong to the swampland. Gravitational and gauge group anomaly inflow on these probes can be used to compute the gravitational central charges (cL,cR) as well as the level of the group’s current algebra kL. The fact that the left-moving central charge on the string probes should be large enough to allow unitary representations of the current algebra with a given level can be used to rule out some theories. This, in particular, explains why it has not been possible to construct the corresponding theories from string theory.
- Research Organization:
- Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE; USDOE Office of Science (SC)
- Grant/Contract Number:
- SC0017647
- OSTI ID:
- 1560717
- Alternate ID(s):
- OSTI ID: 1612734
- Journal Information:
- Physical Review D, Journal Name: Physical Review D Vol. 100 Journal Issue: 6; ISSN 2470-0010
- Publisher:
- American Physical SocietyCopyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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