Tackling the SDC in AdS with CFTs

TL;DR

This paper investigates the Swampland Distance Conjecture in AdS${}_5$ backgrounds using their holographic duals, identifying a tower of massless higher-spin fields and deriving bounds on their decay rates based on conformal data.

Contribution

It provides a holographic analysis of the SDC in AdS${}_5$ with supersymmetry, establishing bounds on higher-spin tower decay rates from conformal field theory data.

Findings

Existence of a tower of exponentially massless higher-spin fields near infinite-distance points.

Bounds on the decay rate of these fields derived from conformal data.

Discussion of the origin of the higher-spin tower in type IIB compactifications.

Abstract

We study the Swampland Distance Conjecture for supersymmetric theories with AdS${}_5$ backgrounds and fixed radius through their $\mathcal{N}=2$ SCFT holographic duals. By the Maldacena-Zhiboedov theorem, around a large class of infinite-distance points there must exist a tower of exponentially massless higher-spin fields in the bulk, for which we find bounds on the decay rate in terms of the conformal data. We discuss the origin of this tower in the gravity side for type IIB compactification on $S^5$ and its orbifolds, and comment about more general cases.