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Conifolds and tunneling in the string landscape

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Abstract

We investigate flux vacua on a variety of one-parameter Calabi-Yau compactifications, and find many examples that are connected through continuous monodromy transformations. For these, we undertake a detailed analysis of the tunneling dynamics and find that tunneling trajectories typically graze the conifold point — particular 3-cycles are forced to contract during such vacuum transitions. Physically, these transitions arise from the competing effects of minimizing the energy for brane nucleation (facilitating a change in flux), versus the energy cost associated with dynamical changes in the periods of certain Calabi-Yau 3-cycles. We find that tunneling occurs only when warping due to back-reaction from the flux through the shrinking cycle is properly taken into account.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Strings, Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, Department of Physics, Columbia University, New York, NY, 10027, U.S.A.

    Pontus Ahlqvist, Brian R. Greene, David Kagan, Eugene A. Lim, Saswat Sarangi & I-Sheng Yang

  2. Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, Cambridge University, Wilberforce Road, CB3 0WA, Cambridge, U.K.

    Eugene A. Lim

  3. Université de Fondwa, UNIF2004, Tom-Gato, Haiti

    Eugene A. Lim

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  1. Pontus Ahlqvist
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  2. Brian R. Greene
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  3. David Kagan
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  4. Eugene A. Lim
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  5. Saswat Sarangi
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  6. I-Sheng Yang
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Correspondence to David Kagan.

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ArXiv ePrint: 1011.6588

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Ahlqvist, P., Greene, B.R., Kagan, D. et al. Conifolds and tunneling in the string landscape. J. High Energ. Phys. 2011, 119 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP03(2011)119

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