de Sitter Vacua in String Theory

TL;DR

This paper presents a method to construct metastable de Sitter vacua in type IIB string theory by using warped compactifications, fluxes, and anti-D3 branes, resulting in long-lived, metastable de Sitter states.

Contribution

It demonstrates a concrete construction of metastable de Sitter vacua in string theory with detailed mechanisms for moduli stabilization and uplift.

Findings

Metastable de Sitter vacua can be achieved with long lifetimes exceeding 10^10 years.

The constructed vacua are stable against decay over cosmological timescales.

The lifetime of de Sitter space in string theory is always shorter than the recurrence time under certain conditions.

Abstract

We outline the construction of metastable de Sitter vacua of type IIB string theory. Our starting point is highly warped IIB compactifications with nontrivial NS and RR three-form fluxes. By incorporating known corrections to the superpotential from Euclidean D-brane instantons or gaugino condensation, one can make models with all moduli fixed, yielding a supersymmetric AdS vacuum. Inclusion of a small number of anti-D3 branes in the resulting warped geometry allows one to uplift the AdS minimum and make it a metastable de Sitter ground state. The lifetime of our metastable de Sitter vacua is much greater than the cosmological timescale of 10^10 years. We also prove, under certain conditions, that the lifetime of dS space in string theory will always be shorter than the recurrence time.