Conifolds and Tunneling in the String Landscape

TL;DR

This paper explores flux vacua in Calabi-Yau compactifications, analyzing tunneling processes that involve conifold points and the importance of warping effects in these transitions.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of tunneling dynamics in flux vacua, emphasizing the role of conifold points and warping effects in vacuum transitions.

Findings

Tunneling trajectories often graze conifold points.

Vacuum transitions involve contracting 3-cycles during tunneling.

Warping effects are crucial for tunneling to occur.

Abstract

We investigate flux vacua on a variety of one-parameter Calabi-Yau compactifications, and find many examples that are connected through continuous monodromy transformations. For these, we undertake a detailed analysis of the tunneling dynamics and find that tunneling trajectories typically graze the conifold point---particular 3-cycles are forced to contract during such vacuum transitions. Physically, these transitions arise from the competing effects of minimizing the energy for brane nucleation (facilitating a change in flux), versus the energy cost associated with dynamical changes in the periods of certain Calabi-Yau 3-cycles. We find that tunneling only occurs when warping due to back-reaction from the flux through the shrinking cycle is properly taken into account.