At the end of the world: Local dynamical cobordism

Abstract

The Cobordism Conjecture states that any Quantum Gravity configuration admits, at topological level, a boundary ending spacetime. We study the dynamical realization of cobordism, as spacetime dependent solutions of Einstein gravity coupled to scalars containing such end-of-the-world ‘branes’. The latter appear in effective theory as a singularity at finite spacetime distance at which scalars go off to infinite field space distance. We provide a local description near the end-of-the-world branes, in which the solutions simplify dramatically and are characterized in terms of a critical exponent, which controls the asymptotic profiles of fields and the universal scaling relations among the spacetime distance to the singularity, the field space distance, and the spacetime curvature. The analysis does not rely on supersymmetry. We study many explicit examples of such Local Dynamical Cobordisms in string theory, including 10d massive IIA, the 10d non-supersymmetric USp(32) theory, Bubbles of Nothing, 4d N = 1 cosmic string solutions, the Klebanov-Strassler throat, Dp-brane solutions, brane configurations related to the D1/D5 systems, and small black holes. Our framework encompasses diverse recent setups in which scalars diverge at the core of defects, by regarding them as suitable end-of-the-world branes. We explore the interplay of Local Dynamical Cobordisms with the Distance Conjecture and other swampland constraintsThis work is supported through the grants CEX2020-001007-S and PGC2018-095976-B-C21, funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by ERDF A way of making Europe. The work by R.A. is supported by the grant BESST-VACUA of CSIC. The work by M.D. is supported by the FPI gran no. FPI SEV-2016-0597-19-3 from Spanish National Research Agency from the Ministry of Science and Innovation. The work by J.C. and J. H. is supported by the FPU grants no. FPU17/04181 and FPU20/01495 from the Spanish Ministry of Educatio