Moduli Stabilization with Long Winding Strings

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that a gas of long strings winding all internal directions in a toroidal compactification can stabilize all moduli fields except the dilaton, advancing understanding of string cosmology stabilization mechanisms.

Contribution

It introduces a novel stabilization mechanism using long winding strings in toroidal compactifications, addressing a key challenge in string cosmology.

Findings

Long strings can stabilize all moduli except the dilaton.

Stabilization occurs at the self-dual radius for internal dimensions.

The dilaton remains unstabilized and requires additional mechanisms.

Abstract

Stabilizing all of the modulus fields coming from compactifications of string theory on internal manifolds is one of the outstanding challenges for string cosmology. Here, in a simple example of toroidal compactification, we study the dynamics of the moduli fields corresponding to the size and shape of the torus along with the ambient flux and long strings winding both internal directions. It is known that a string gas containing states with non-vanishing winding and momentum number in one internal direction can stabilize the radius of this internal circle to be at self-dual radius. We show that a gas of long strings winding all internal directions can stabilize all moduli, except the dilaton which is stabilized by hand, in this simple example.