Abstract
We study towers of light particles that appear in infinite-distance limits of moduli spaces of 9-dimensional \( \mathcal{N} \) = 1 string theories, some of which notably feature decompactification limits with running string coupling. The lightest tower in such decompactification limits consists of the non-BPS Kaluza-Klein modes of Type I′ string theory, whose masses depend nontrivially on the moduli of the theory. We work out the moduli-dependence by explicit computation, finding that despite the running decompactification the Distance Conjecture remains satisfied with an exponential decay rate \( \alpha \ge 1/\sqrt{d-2} \) in accordance with the sharpened Distance Conjecture. The related sharpened Convex Hull Scalar Weak Gravity Conjecture also passes stringent tests. Our results non-trivially test the Emergent String Conjecture, while highlighting the important subtlety that decompactifcation can lead to a running solution rather than to a higher-dimensional vacuum.
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Acknowledgments
We are very thankful to Jose Calderon-Infante, Alberto Castellano, Alek Bedroya and Miguel Montero for illuminating discussions. We thank Stephanie Baines for comments on the draft. IR also wishes to acknowledge the hospitality of the Department of Theoretical Physics at CERN during the development of this work. The work of BH and ME was supported by NSF grants PHY-1914934 and PHY-2112800. The work of JM is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of High Energy Physics, under Award Number DE-SC0011632. I.V. and I.R. acknowledge the support of the Spanish Agencia Estatal de Investigacion through the grant “IFT Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa” CEX2020-001007-S and the grant PID2021-123017NB-I00, funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/ 501100011033 and by ERDF A way of making Europe. The work of IR is supported by the Spanish FPI grant No. PRE2020-094163. The work of I.V. is also partly supported by the grant RYC2019-028512-I from the MCI (Spain) and the ERC Starting Grant QGuide — 101042568 — StG 2021.
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Etheredge, M., Heidenreich, B., McNamara, J. et al. Running decompactification, sliding towers, and the distance conjecture. J. High Energ. Phys. 2023, 182 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP12(2023)182
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP12(2023)182