Gravitational Background of Alice-Vortices and R7-Branes

TL;DR

This paper constructs and analyzes a new class of codimension-two vortex solutions in axio-dilaton gravity, revealing their properties and supporting the idea that R7-branes have an 8D non-supersymmetric quantum field theory description.

Contribution

It introduces a novel class of Alice-vortex solutions in axio-dilaton gravity and explores their implications for R7-branes in IIB supergravity, linking to the Swampland Conjecture.

Findings

Vortices induce axion monodromy with $C_0 o -C_0$

R7-branes carry an intrinsic dipole moment

Worldvolume theory of R7-branes is likely an 8D non-supersymmetric QFT

Abstract

Codimension-two vortex solutions are important solitonic objects in both quantum field theory and gravity. In this paper, we construct a class of codimension-two Alice-vortex solutions in axio-dilaton gravity, in which monodromy around the vortex enacts the axion transformation $C_0 \mapsto -C_0$. In IIB supergravity, this furnishes a class of R7-brane backgrounds of the sort predicted by the Swampland Cobordism Conjecture. Such configurations generically carry an intrinsic dipole moment. We extract additional properties of such branes from scattering probes. These results provide further evidence that the worldvolume theory of an R7-brane is an 8D non-supersymmetric interacting quantum field theory.