Phase Structure of a Brane/Anti-Brane System at Large N

TL;DR

This paper investigates the phase structure of a brane/anti-brane system at large N, revealing how higher order corrections influence metastability, vacuum degeneracy, and generate an axion potential.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed analysis of the phase transitions and stability of metastable vacua in a brane/anti-brane system using a matrix model approach, highlighting new effects at large N.

Findings

Metastable vacua disappear at high 't Hooft coupling.

Higher order corrections induce a rich phase structure.

An exactly computable axion potential is generated at large N.

Abstract

We further analyze a class of recently studied metastable string vacua obtained by wrapping D5-branes and anti-D5-branes over rigid homologous S^2's of a non-compact Calabi-Yau threefold. The large N dual description is characterized by a potential for the glueball fields which is determined by an auxiliary matrix model. The higher order corrections to this potential produce a suprisingly rich phase structure. In particular, at sufficiently large 't Hooft coupling the metastable vacua present at weak coupling cease to exist. This instability can already be seen by an open string two loop contribution to the glueball potential. The glueball potential also lifts some of the degeneracy in the vacua characterized by the phases of the glueball fields. This generates an exactly computable non-vanishing axion potential at large N.