QCD landscape?

TL;DR

This paper conjectures a landscape of vacua in a (4+1)-dimensional holographic theory, exploring its implications for fundamental parameters, stability, and astrophysical phenomena, drawing parallels with the Calabi-Yau landscape in string theory.

Contribution

It proposes a new perspective on holographic vacua, including flux compactification and stability criteria, and discusses potential astrophysical consequences of a vacuum landscape.

Findings

Multiple vacua may exist in holographic theories, separated by domain walls.

The vacuum landscape could influence cosmic ray behavior and nucleosynthesis.

Astrophysical observations might test the presence of different vacuum regions.

Abstract

Just comparing with the scenario that the (3+1)-dimensional "real world" of the Calabi-Yau compactification has a tremendous landscape, we conjecture that a (4+1)-dimensional holographic theory may also hold a landscape of its vacua. Unlike the traditional studies of the AdS/CFT phenomenology where the vacua are always constructive, we discuss the proper holographic vacua and their flux compactification, starting from some general compact Einstein manifolds. The proper vacua should be restricted by (i) a consistent worldsheet theory that possesses the superconformal symmetry, (ii) some definite symmetries to keep/break the corresponding symmetries of the dual field theory, (iii) certain brane/flux configurations to cancel anomalies, and (iv) stabilities. We consider diverse fundamental parameters of the dual field theory, fixed by some special vacuum moduli. In an opposite way, if some field theory such as QCD holds an AdS dual, it may also possesses various fundamental parameters by an "landscape" of its vacuum. Different vacua may be adjacent with each other, and divided by domain walls. If the size of a single vacuum region is smaller than the visible universe, it may be testable. We discuss the consequences of this conjecture in the astrophysical environments, include but not limit to: (i) consistency with the critical energy density of the universe, (ii) the behaviors of cosmic rays, (iii) the stability and abundance of deuterons and other nuclei in the big-bang nucleosynthesis and the star burning scenarios, and (iv) the existence of strange/charm stars.