Refining the boundaries of the classical de Sitter landscape

We derive highly constraining no-go theorems for classical de Sitter backgrounds of string theory, with parallel sources; this should impact the embedding of cosmological models. We study ten-dimensional vacua of type II supergravities with parallel and backreacted orientifold Op-planes and Dp-branes, on four-dimensional de Sitter space-time times a compact manifold. Vacua for p=3, 7 or 8 are completely excluded, and we obtain tight constraints for p=4, 5, 6. This is achieved through the derivation of an enlightening expression for the four-dimensional Ricci scalar. Further interesting expressions and no-go theorems are obtained. The paper is self-contained so technical aspects, including conventions, might be of more general interest.Comment: 15 pages + appendices and references; v2: few additions; v3: requirements on the sources and internal geometry clarified, version accepted for publication; v4: erratum added, minor impact on the result

Accelerated Universes from type IIA Compactifications

We study slow-roll accelerating cosmologies arising from geometric compactifications of type IIA string theory on $T^{6}/(\mathbb{Z}_{2}\,\times\,\mathbb{Z}_{2})$. With the aid of a genetic algorithm, we are able to find quasi-de Sitter backgrounds with both slow-roll parameters of order $0.1$. Furthermore, we study their evolution by numerically solving the corresponding time-dependent equations of motion, and we show that they actually display a few e-folds of accelerated expansion. Finally, we comment on their perturbative reliability.Comment: 22 pages, 3 figures and 5 table

Loop corrections to the antibrane potential

Antibranes provide some of the most generic ways to uplift Anti-de Sitter flux compactifications to de Sitter, and there is a growing body of evidence that antibranes placed in long warped throats such as the Klebanov-Strassler warped deformed conifold solution have a brane-brane-repelling tachyon. This tachyon was first found in the regime of parameters in which the backreaction of the antibranes is large, and its existence was inferred from a highly nontrivial cancellation of certain terms in the inter-brane potential. We use a brane effective action approach, similar to that proposed by Michel, Mintun, Polchinski, Puhm and Saad in arXiv:1412.5702, to analyze antibranes in Klebanov-Strassler when their backreaction is small, and find a regime of parameters where all perturbative contributions to the action can be computed explicitly. We find that the cancellation found at strong coupling is also present in the weak-coupling regime, and we establish its existence to all loops. Our calculation indicates that the spectrum of the antibrane worldvolume theory is not gapped, and may generically have a tachyon. Hence uplifting mechanisms involving antibranes remain questionable even when backreaction is small.Comment: 27 pages, 5 figures, v2: Added clarification of statements, version accepted for publication in JHE

BPS domain walls from backreacted orientifolds

Compactifications with D-brane and orientifold sources lead to standard gauged supergravity theories if the sources are smeared over the internal directions. It is therefore of interest to find how the solutions described by the gauged supergravity are altered by properly localising the sources. In this paper we analyse this for BPS domain wall solutions in the seven-dimensional gauged supergravity obtained from an O6 toroidal orientifold compactification in massive IIA supergravity. This is one of the simplest no-scale supergravities that can be constructed and analysed in full detail. We find and discuss the BPS domain walls both when the O6 planes are smeared and localised. When the O6 planes are localised the domain wall solutions live in a warped compactification. In order to get explicit expressions we also consider the non-compact versions of the solutions for which the O6 planes have been traded for D6 branes. Through T-duality we obtain partially localised solutions for compactifications to four dimensions using O3 planes with 3-form fluxes.Comment: 23 pages, 1 figur

de Sitter vacua from nonperturbative flux compactifications

We present stable de Sitter solutions of $\mathcal{N} = 1$ supergravity in a geometric type IIB duality frame with the addition of non-perturbative contributions. Contrary to the standard approach, we retain the moduli dependence of both the tree level superpotential and its non-perturbative contribution. This provides the possibility for a single-step stabilisation of all moduli simultaneously in a de Sitter vacuum. Using a genetic algorithm we find explicit solutions with different features.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, 2 tables. v2: 5 pages, 1 figure, 2 tables. Careful rephrasing of motivation and approach, added flux-quantisation example, corrected error in Table 1.. Version accepted for publication in PR

(Anti-)Brane backreaction beyond perturbation theory

We improve on the understanding of the backreaction of anti-D6-branes in a flux background that is mutually BPS with D6-branes. This setup is analogous to the study of the backreaction of anti-D3-branes inserted in the KS throat, but does not require us to smear the anti-branes or do a perturbative analysis around the BPS background. We solve the full equations of motion near the anti-D6-branes and show that only two boundary conditions are consistent with the equations of motion. Upon invoking a topological argument we eliminate the boundary condition with regular H flux since it cannot lead to a solution that approaches the right kind of flux away from the anti-D6-brane. This leaves us with a boundary condition which has singular, but integrable, H flux energy density.Comment: 12 pages + appendices, 1 figure; v2: minor changes, version published in JHE

The problematic backreaction of SUSY-breaking branes

In this paper we investigate the localisation of SUSY-breaking branes which, in the smeared approximation, support specific non-BPS vacua. We show, for a wide class of boundary conditions, that there is no flux vacuum when the branes are described by a genuine delta-function. Even more, we find that the smeared solution is the unique solution with a regular brane profile. Our setup consists of a non-BPS AdS_7 solution in massive IIA supergravity with smeared anti-D6-branes and fluxes T-dual to ISD fluxes in IIB supergravity.Comment: 27 pages, Latex2e, 5 figure

Smeared versus localised sources in flux compactifications

We investigate whether vacuum solutions in flux compactifications that are obtained with smeared sources (orientifolds or D-branes) still survive when the sources are localised. This seems to rely on whether the solutions are BPS or not. First we consider two sets of BPS solutions that both relate to the GKP solution through T-dualities: (p+1)-dimensional solutions from spacetime-filling Op-planes with a conformally Ricci-flat internal space, and p-dimensional solutions with Op-planes that wrap a 1-cycle inside an everywhere negatively curved twisted torus. The relation between the solution with smeared orientifolds and the localised version is worked out in detail. We then demonstrate that a class of non-BPS AdS_4 solutions that exist for IASD fluxes and with smeared D3-branes (or analogously for ISD fluxes with anti-D3-branes) does not survive the localisation of the (anti) D3-branes. This casts doubts on the stringy consistency of non-BPS solutions that are obtained in the limit of smeared sources.Comment: 23 pages; v2: minor corrections, added references, version published in JHE