Islands in the landscape

TL;DR

This paper explores how sinks to anti-de Sitter space in the string theory landscape can alter the probability distribution of vacua, potentially creating isolated regions or 'islands' with distinct thermal properties.

Contribution

It introduces the concept that sinks can fragment the landscape into thermally isolated islands, affecting the overall probability measures in eternal inflation scenarios.

Findings

Sinks to anti-de Sitter space can disrupt thermal equilibrium.

The landscape may fragment into isolated 'islands' due to sinks.

Probabilities in the landscape are significantly affected by the presence of sinks.

Abstract

The string theory landscape consists of many metastable de Sitter vacua, populated by eternal inflation. Tunneling between these vacua gives rise to a dynamical system, which asymptotically settles down to an equilibrium state. We investigate the effects of sinks to anti-de Sitter space, and show how their existence can change probabilities in the landscape. Sinks can disturb the thermal occupation numbers that would otherwise exist in the landscape and may cause regions that were previously in thermal contact to be divided into separate, thermally isolated islands.