Flux Vacua with Approximate Flat Directions

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new method to find type IIB flux vacua with flat directions at tree level, enabling the construction of models with desirable properties for cosmology and supersymmetry breaking.

Contribution

The authors develop a novel approach to generate flux vacua with approximate flat directions, including explicit solutions in toroidal and Calabi-Yau compactifications, expanding the landscape of viable string theory models.

Findings

Explicit solutions with N=1 and N=2 supersymmetry in toroidal compactifications.

Discovery of perturbatively flat vacua in Calabi-Yau compactifications.

Potential applications in de Sitter constructions, inflation, and supersymmetry breaking.

Abstract

We present a novel method to obtain type IIB flux vacua with flat directions at tree level. We perform appropriate choices of flux quanta that induce relations between the flux superpotential and its derivatives. This method is implemented in toroidal and Calabi-Yau compactifications in the large complex structure limit. Explicit solutions are obtained and classified on the basis of duality equivalences. In the toroidal case we present solutions with N=1 and N=2 supersymmetry and arbitrarily weak coupling. In Calabi-Yaus we find novel perturbatively flat vacua, as well as solutions with non-zero flux superpotential and an axionic flat direction which represent a promising starting point for de Sitter constructions from non-zero F-terms in the complex structure sector. The higher order (perturbative and non-perturbative) effects that can lift these flat directions are discussed. We also outline applications in a wide variety of settings involving the classical Regge growth conjecture, inflation and quintessence, supersymmetry breaking and F-term de Sitter uplifting.