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Field dynamics and tunneling in a flux landscape

Johnson, Matthew C. and Larfors, Magdalena (2008) Field dynamics and tunneling in a flux landscape. Physical Review D, 78 (8). Art. No. 083534. ISSN 2470-0010. doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.78.083534. https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:JOHprd08a

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Abstract

We investigate field dynamics and tunneling between metastable minima in a landscape of type IIB flux compactifications, utilizing monodromies of the complex structure moduli space to continuously connect flux vacua. After describing the generic features of a flux-induced potential for the complex structure and type IIB axiodilaton, we specialize to the mirror quintic Calabi-Yau to obtain an example landscape. Studying the cosmological dynamics of the complex structure moduli, we find that the potential generically does not support slow-roll inflation and that in general the landscape separates neatly into basins of attraction of the various minima. We then discuss tunneling, with the inclusion of gravitational effects, in many-dimensional field spaces. A set of constraints on the form of the Euclidean paths through field space are presented, and then applied to construct approximate instantons mediating the transition between de Sitter vacua in the flux landscape. We find that these instantons are generically thick wall and that the tunneling rate is suppressed in the large-volume limit. We also consider examples where supersymmetry is not broken by fluxes, in which case near–Bogomolnyi-Prasad-Sommerfeld thin-wall bubbles can be constructed. We calculate the bubble-wall tension, finding that it scales like a D- or NS-brane bubble, and comment on the implications of this correspondence. Finally, we present a brief discussion of eternal inflation in the flux landscape.


Item Type:Article
Related URLs:
URLURL TypeDescription
http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.78.083534DOIUNSPECIFIED
http://link.aps.org/abstract/PRD/v78/e083534PublisherUNSPECIFIED
ORCID:
AuthorORCID
Johnson, Matthew C.0000-0002-5099-8185
Additional Information:© 2008 The American Physical Society. (Received 10 June 2008; published 23 October 2008) We would like to thank T. Banks, F. Denef, M. Dine, G. Festuccia, N. Johansson, A. Morisse, B. Underwood and K. Vyas for interesting discussions, and U. Danielsson and T. Dimofte for discussions and comments on the manuscript. M.L. would like to thank Caltech and M.J. would like to thank Uppsala University for their generous hospitality during important stages of this work. M.J. acknowledges support from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.
Group:Moore Center for Theoretical Cosmology and Physics
Funders:
Funding AgencyGrant Number
Gordon and Betty Moore FoundationUNSPECIFIED
Issue or Number:8
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevD.78.083534
Record Number:CaltechAUTHORS:JOHprd08a
Persistent URL:https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:JOHprd08a
Usage Policy:No commercial reproduction, distribution, display or performance rights in this work are provided.
ID Code:12133
Collection:CaltechAUTHORS
Deposited By: Archive Administrator
Deposited On:24 Oct 2008 21:52
Last Modified:08 Nov 2021 22:25

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