A Wrinkle in Coleman - De Luccia

TL;DR

This paper reveals that stringy effects can significantly increase vacuum decay rates across high potential barriers, which could profoundly impact the understanding of the string theory landscape.

Contribution

It demonstrates that stringy effects lead to unexpectedly large decay rates, challenging previous assumptions about vacuum stability in string theory.

Findings

Stringy effects cause large decay rates over high barriers.

Vacuum transition measures are drastically altered.

Implications for the string vacua landscape.

Abstract

Stringy effects on vacuum transitions are shown to include surprisingly large decay rates through very high potential barriers. This simple, yet counter-intuitive result will drastically modify the measure on the landscape of string vacua.