Crisis on Infinite Earths: Short-lived de Sitter Vacua in the String Theory Landscape

TL;DR

This paper constructs non-perturbative anti-de Sitter vacua in string theory that, when uplifted to de Sitter space, decay rapidly and avoid common obstructions, suggesting dS may not be a true vacuum but a state.

Contribution

It introduces a new class of purely non-perturbative dS vacua with distinctive features, including multiple maxima, and analyzes their compatibility with the TCC.

Findings

Uplifted dS vacua decay much faster than standard models.

Constructed vacua avoid obstructions of other dS constructions.

Challenges in realizing TCC-compatible dS vacua in string theory.

Abstract

We construct purely non-perturbative anti-de Sitter vacua in string theory which, on uplifting to a de Sitter (dS) one, have a decay time many orders of magnitude smaller than those of standard constructions, such as the KKLT and LVS scenarios. By virtue of being constructed purely from non-perturbative terms, these vacua avoids certain obstructions plaguing other constructions of dS in string theory. This results in a new class of phenomenological dS vacua in string theory with novel distinctive characteristics such as having two maxima. After examining whether these uplifted dS vacua obey the TCC, we revisit some old problems of realization of dS space as a vacuum. We find that not only is it phenomenologically hard to construct TCC-compatible vacua, but also inherent temporal dependences of the degrees of freedom generically arise in such constructions, amongst other issues. This reinforces the idea that dS, if it exists in string theory, should be a Glauber-Sudarshan state and not a vacuum.