Catastrophic Decays of Compactified Space-Times

TL;DR

This paper investigates the instability issues in non-supersymmetric Kaluza-Klein and string theories, examining their prevalence, effects of moduli potentials, and the impact of supersymmetry breaking on stability distinctions.

Contribution

It analyzes the generality of catastrophic instabilities in compactified space-times and explores the effects of potentials and supersymmetry breaking on these instabilities.

Findings

Instabilities are quite generic in non-supersymmetric compactifications.

Potential generation on moduli space influences the stability landscape.

Supersymmetry breaking affects the distinction between stable and unstable states.

Abstract

Witten long ago pointed out that the simplest Kaluza-Klein theory, without supersymmetry, is subject to a catastrophic instability. There are a variety of string theories which are potentially subject to these instabilities. Here we explore a number of questions: how generic are these instabilities? what happens when a potential is generated on the moduli space? in the presence of supersymmetry breaking, is there still a distinction between supersymmetric and non-supersymmetric states?