159 research outputs found
Type-IIA flux compactifications and N=4 gauged supergravities
We establish the precise correspondence between Type-IIA flux
compactifications preserving an exact or spontaneously broken N=4 supersymmetry
in four dimensions, and gaugings of their effective N=4 supergravities. We
exhibit the explicit map between fluxes and Bianchi identities in the
higher-dimensional theory and generalized structure constants and Jacobi
identities in the reduced theory, also detailing the origin of gauge groups
embedded at angles in the duality group. We present AdS4 solutions of the
massive Type-IIA theory with spontaneous breaking to N=1, at small string
coupling and large volume, and discuss their dual CFT3.Comment: 43 pages, 1 figure. v2: refs added, v3: minor additions. Final
version to appear on JHE
CHIRAL EXTRAPOLATION OF HYPERON VECTOR FORM-FACTORS
We present a new study of SU(3)-breaking corrections in hyperon vector form factors relevant for the extraction of Vus. A lattice quenched simulation has been performed, showing that it is possible to reach the required precision to extract SU(3)-breaking corrections in the regime of simulated masses. In order to perform the chiral extrapolation we calculated the chiral corrections to the vector form factor in HBChPT. Besides the one-loop O(p^2) contribution, we included also the subleading O(p^3) and O(1/M_B) corrections that, due to the Ademollo-Gatto theorem, are free from the contamination of unknown low energy constants. The results complete and correct previous calculations, and show that subleading corrections cannot be neglected. We also studied decuplet contributions within HBChPT and show that, in this case, the chiral expansion breaks down, rising doubts on the consistency of the theory
Quantum Horizons of the Standard Model Landscape
The long-distance effective field theory of our Universe--the Standard Model
coupled to gravity--has a unique 4D vacuum, but we show that it also has a
landscape of lower-dimensional vacua, with the potential for moduli arising
from vacuum and Casimir energies. For minimal Majorana neutrino masses, we find
a near-continuous infinity of AdS3xS1 vacua, with circumference ~20 microns and
AdS3 length 4x10^25 m. By AdS/CFT, there is a CFT2 of central charge c~10^90
which contains the Standard Model (and beyond) coupled to quantum gravity in
this vacuum. Physics in these vacua is the same as in ours for energies between
10^-1 eV and 10^48 GeV, so this CFT2 also describes all the physics of our
vacuum in this energy range. We show that it is possible to realize
quantum-stabilized AdS vacua as near-horizon regions of new kinds of quantum
extremal black objects in the higher-dimensional space--near critical black
strings in 4D, near-critical black holes in 3D. The violation of the
null-energy condition by the Casimir energy is crucial for these horizons to
exist, as has already been realized for analogous non-extremal 3D black holes
by Emparan, Fabbri and Kaloper. The new extremal 3D black holes are
particularly interesting--they are (meta)stable with an entropy independent of
hbar and G_N, so a microscopic counting of the entropy may be possible in the
G_N->0 limit. Our results suggest that it should be possible to realize the
larger landscape of AdS vacua in string theory as near-horizon geometries of
new extremal black brane solutions.Comment: 44 pages, 9 figure
On general flux backgrounds with localized sources
We derive new consistency conditions for string compactifications with
generic fluxes (RR, NSNS, geometrical) and localized sources (D-branes,
NS-branes, KK-monopoles). The constraints are all related by string dualities
and share a common origin in M-theory. We also find new sources of
instabilities. We discuss the importance of these conditions for the
consistency of the effective action and for the study of interpolating
solutions between vacua.Comment: 29 pages, 2 figures, v2: published versio
Remarks on the hadronic matrix elements relevant to the SUSY K-Kbar mixing amplitude
We compute the 1-loop chiral corrections to the bag parameters which are
needed for the discussion of the SUSY K-Kbar mixing problem in both finite and
infinite volume. We then show how the bag parameters can be combined among
themselves and with some auxiliary quantities and thus sensibly reduce the
systematic errors due to chiral extrapolations as well as those due to finite
volume artefacts present in the results obtained from lattice QCD. We also show
that in some cases these advantages remain as such even after including the
2-loop chiral corrections. Similar discussion is also made for the K --> pi
electro-weak penguin operators.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figures [added 1 reference and a discussion about the
impact of the NNLO chiral corrections to the "golden ratios" (c.f. Sec.6)
Soft masses in superstring models with anomalous U(1) symmetries
We analyze the general structure of soft scalar masses emerging in
superstring models involving anomalous U(1) symmetries, with the aim of
characterizing more systematically the circumstances under which they can
happen to be flavor universal. We consider both heterotic orbifold and
intersecting brane models, possibly with several anomalous and non-anomalous
spontaneously broken U(1) symmetries. The hidden sector is assumed to consist
of the universal dilaton, Kahler class and complex structure moduli, which are
supposed to break supersymmetry, and a minimal set of Higgs fields which
compensate the Fayet-Iliopoulos terms. We leave the superpotential that is
supposed to stabilize the hidden sector fields unspecified, but we carefully
take into account the relations implied by gauge invariance and the constraints
required for the existence of a metastable vacuum with vanishing cosmological
constant. The results are parametrized in terms of a constrained Goldstino
direction, suitably defined effective modular weights, and the U(1) charges and
shifts. We show that the effect induced by vector multiplets strongly depends
on the functional form of the Kahler potential for the Higgs fields. We find in
particular that whenever these are charged matter fields, like in heterotic
models, the effect is non-trivial, whereas when they are shifting moduli
fields, like in certain intersecting brane models, the effect may vanish.Comment: 35 pages, LaTe
Non-Kaehler attracting manifolds
We observe that the new attractor mechanism describing IIB flux vacua for
Calabi-Yau compactifications has a possible extension to the landscape of
non-Kaehler vacua that emerge in heterotic compactifications with fluxes. We
focus on the effective theories coming from compactifications on generalized
half-flat manifolds, showing that the Minkowski "attractor points'' for 3-form
fluxes are special-hermitian manifolds.Comment: 18 pages. v2: Minor polishing, reference added. v3: More cleanup,
final version for JHE
Liouville Cosmology at Zero and Finite Temperatures
We discuss cosmology in the context of Liouville strings, characterized by a
central-charge deficit Q^2, in which target time is identified with (the
world-sheet zero mode of the) Liouville field: Q-Cosmology. We use a specific
example of colliding brane worlds to illustrate the phase diagram of this
cosmological framework. The collision provides the necessary initial
cosmological instability, expressed as a departure from conformal invariance in
the underlying string model. The brane motion provides a way of breaking
target-space supersymmetry, and leads to various phases of the brane and bulk
Universes. Specifically, we find a hot metastable phase for the bulk string
Universe soon after the brane collision in which supersymmetry is broken, which
we describe by means of a subcritical world-sheet sigma model dressed by a
space-like Liouville field, representing finite temperature (Euclidean time).
This phase is followed by an inflationary phase for the brane Universe, in
which the bulk string excitations are cold. This is described by a
super-critical Liouville string with a time-like Liouville mode, whose zero
mode is identified with the Minkowski target time. Finally, we speculate on
possible ways of exiting the inflationary phase, either by means of subsequent
collisions or by deceleration of the brane Universe due to closed-string
radiation from the brane to the bulk. While phase transitions from hot to cold
configurations occur in the bulk string universe, stringy excitations attached
to the brane world remain thermalized throughout, at a temperature which can be
relatively high. The late-time behaviour of the model results in
dilaton-dominated dark energy and present-day acceleration of the expansion of
the Universe, asymptoting eventually to zero.Comment: 59 pages LaTeX, 4 figure
Finite-Volume Two-Pion Amplitudes in the I=0 Channel
We perform a calculation in one-loop chiral perturbation theory of the
two-pion matrix elements and correlation functions of an I=0 scalar operator,
in finite and infinite volumes for both full and quenched QCD. We show that
major difficulties arise in the quenched theory due to the lack of unitarity.
Similar problems are expected for quenched lattice calculations of amplitudes with . Our results raise the important question
of whether it is consistent to study amplitudes beyond leading
order in chiral perturbation theory in quenched or partially quenched QCD.Comment: Version to appear on Phys. Lett. B, with only very minor and
stylistic change
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