Localised Anti-Branes in Flux Backgrounds

TL;DR

This paper constructs localized anti-brane solutions in flux backgrounds, showing that their singularities are physical and potentially resolvable, supporting their role in string theory models of de Sitter space.

Contribution

It provides the first linearized solutions for localized anti-branes in flux backgrounds, demonstrating smoothness and physicality of singularities, and suggests a resolution via brane polarization.

Findings

Localized solutions exist for both positive and negative charges.

Singularities are shielded by finite temperature horizons, indicating physicality.

Flux at the horizon diverges in the extremal limit, implying possible resolution through polarization.

Abstract

Solutions corresponding to finite temperature (anti)-D3 and M2 branes localised in flux backgrounds are constructed in a linear approximation. The flux backgrounds considered are toy models for the IR of the Klebanov-Strassler solution and its M-theory analogue, the Cveti\v{c}-Gibbons-L\"{u}-Pope solution. Smooth solutions exist for either sign charge, in stark contrast with the previously considered case of smeared black branes. That the singularities of the anti-branes in the zero temperature extremal limit can be shielded behind a finite temperature horizon indicates that the singularities are physical and resolvable by string theory. As the charge of the branes grows large and negative, the flux at the horizon increases without bound and diverges in the extremal limit, which suggests a resolution via brane polarisation \`{a} la Polchinski-Strassler. It therefore appears that the anti-brane singularities do not indicate a problem with the SUSY-breaking metastable states corresponding to expanded anti-brane configurations in these backgrounds, nor with the use of these states in constructing the de Sitter landscape.