PIRSA:14100081

Flux Compactifications Grow Lumps

Zukowski, C. (2014). Flux Compactifications Grow Lumps. Perimeter Institute. https://pirsa.org/14100081

Zukowski, Claire. Flux Compactifications Grow Lumps. Perimeter Institute, Oct. 07, 2014, https://pirsa.org/14100081 

          @misc{ pirsa_PIRSA:14100081,
            doi = {10.48660/14100081},
            url = {https://pirsa.org/14100081},
            author = {Zukowski, Claire},
            keywords = {Cosmology},
            language = {en},
            title = {Flux Compactifications Grow Lumps},
            publisher = {Perimeter Institute},
            year = {2014},
            month = {oct},
            note = {PIRSA:14100081 see, \url{https://pirsa.org}}
          }

Claire Zukowski

University of California, Berkeley

Talk number
PIRSA:14100081
Collection
Talk Type
Subject
Abstract
The simplest flux compactifications are highly symmetric—a q-form flux is wrapped uniformly around an extra-dimensional q-sphere. I will discuss a family of solutions that break the internal SO(q+1) symmetry of these solutions down to SO(q)×Z_2, and show that often at least one of them has lower vacuum energy, larger entropy, and is more stable than the symmetric solution. I will describe the phase diagram of lumpy solutions and provide an interpretation in terms of an effective potential. Finally, I will provide evidence that the perturbatively stable vacua have a non-perturbative instability to spontaneously sprout lumps; generically this new decay is exponentially faster than all other known decays of the model.