String Effective Actions and Cosmological Stability of Scalar Potentials

TL;DR

This paper investigates how string effective actions, including quantum corrections, influence the stability of scalar potential minima in cosmological models, revealing that radiation can destabilize minima with negative cosmological constants.

Contribution

It demonstrates the destabilizing effect of radiation on negative cosmological constant minima within string effective actions with quantum corrections.

Findings

Radiation destabilizes minima with negative cosmological constant.

String threshold corrections are included in the analysis.

Stability depends on the presence of radiation in the cosmological setting.

Abstract

The cosmology of the string effective action, including one loop string threshold corrections, is analyzed for static compactifications. The stability of the minima of a general supersymmetry breaking potential is studied in the presence of radiation. In particular, it is shown that the radiation bath makes the minima with negative cosmological constant unstable.