We derive a sufficient condition for realizing meta-stable de Sitter vacua with small positive cosmological constant within type IIB string theory flux compactifications with spontaneously broken supersymmetry. There are a number of `lamp post' constructions of de Sitter vacua in type IIB string theory and supergravity. We show that one of them -- the method of `Kähler uplifting' by F-terms from an interplay between non-perturbative effects and the leading $α'$-correction -- allows for a more general parametric understanding of the existence of de Sitter vacua. The result is a condition on the values of the flux induced superpotential and the topological data of the Calabi-Yau compactification, which guarantees the existence of a meta-stable de Sitter vacuum if met. Our analysis explicitly includes the stabilization of all moduli, i.e. the Kähler, dilaton and complex structure moduli, by the interplay of the leading perturbative and non-perturbative effects at parametrically large volume.
We study the probability distribution P(Λ) of the cosmological constant Λin a specific set of KKLT type models of supersymmetric IIB vacua. We show that, as we sweep through the quantized flux values in this flux compactification, P(Λ) behaves divergent at Λ=0^- and the median magnitude of Λdrops exponentially as the number of complex structure moduli h^{2,1} increases. Also, owing to the hierarchical and approximate no-scale structure, the probability of having a positive Hessian (mass squared matrix) approaches unity as h^{2,1} increases.
We search for phenomenologically viable vacua of IIB string flux compactifications on Calabi-Yau orientifolds with a single Kaehler modulus. We perform both analytic studies and numerical searches in order to find models with de Sitter vacua and TeV-scale SUSY particle phenomenology.
In this paper, we are looking for $\mathcal{N}=1$, AdS$_4$ sourceless vacua in type IIB. While several examples exist in type IIA , there exists only one example of such vacua in type IIB . Thanks to the framework of generalized geometry we were able to devise a semi-algorithmical method to look for sourceless vacua. We present this method, which can easily be generalized to more complex cases, and give two new vacua in type IIB.
We present a brief overview of attempts to construct de Sitter vacua in string theory and explain how the results of this 20-year endeavor could point to the fact that string theory harbors no de Sitter vacua at all. Making such a statement is often considered controversial and "bad news for string theory". We discuss how perhaps the opposite can be true.
We present further no-go theorems for classical de Sitter vacua in Type II string theory, i.e., de Sitter constructions that do not invoke non-perturbative effects or explicit supersymmetry breaking localized sources. By analyzing the stability of the 4D potential arising from compactification on manfiolds with curvature, fluxes, and orientifold planes, we found that additional ingredients, beyond the minimal ones presented so far, are necessary to avoid the presence of unstable modes. We enumerate the minimal setups for (meta)stable de Sitter vacua to arise in this context.
The search for classically stable Type IIA de-Sitter vacua typically starts with an ansatz that gives Anti-de-Sitter supersymmetric vacua and then raises the cosmological constant by modifying the compactification. As one raises the cosmological constant, the couplings typically destabilize the classically stable vacuum, so the probability that this approach will lead to a classically stable de-Sitter vacuum is Gaussianly suppressed. This suggests that classically stable de-Sitter vacua in string theory (at least in the Type IIA region), especially those with relatively high cosmological const…
In this note I demonstrate that certain findings on IIB flux compactifications in the large complex structure limit, when combined with recent statistical bounds on the large $h^{2,1}$ limit, are compatible with the Tadpole Conjecture, contrary to previous claims.
We classify discrete modular symmetries in the effective action of Type IIB string on toroidal orientifolds with three-form fluxes, emphasizing on $T^6/\mathbb{Z}_2$ and $T^6/(\mathbb{Z}_2\times \mathbb{Z}_2^\prime)$ orientifold backgrounds. On the three-form flux background, the modular group is spontaneously broken down to its congruence subgroup whose pattern is severely constrained by a quantization of fluxes and tadpole cancellation conditions. We explicitly demonstrate that the congruence subgroups appearing in the effective action arise on magnetized D-branes wrapping certain cycles of …
In this letter we discuss de Sitter vacua in maximal gauged supergravity in 4 dimensions. We show that, using the newly deformed theories introduced in arxiv:1209.0760, we can obtain de Sitter vacua with arbitrarily flat tachyonic directions in the SO(4,4)c models.
Supersymmetric Minkowski vacua in IIB orientifold compactifications based on orbifolds with background fluxes and non-perturbative superpotentials are investigated. Especially, microscopic requirements and difficulties to obtain such vacua are discussed. We show that orbifold models with one and two complex structure moduli and supersymmetric 2-form flux can be successfully stabilized to such vacua. By taking additional gaugino condensation on fixed space-time filling D3-branes into account also models without complex structure can be consistently stabilized to Minkowski vacua.
We consider genuine type IIB string theory (supersymmetric) brane intersections that preserve $(1+1)$D Lorentz symmetry. We provide the full supergravity solutions in their analytic form and discuss their physical properties. The Ansatz for the spacetime dependence of the different brane warp factors goes beyond the harmonic superposition principle. By studying the associated near-horizon geometry, we construct interesting classes of AdS$_3$ vacua in type IIB and highlight their relation to the existing classifications in the literature. Finally, we discuss their holographic properties.
We address the implementation of non-Abelian Wilson lines in D=4 N=1 Type IIB orientifold constructions. We present an explicit three-family example with the gauge group (U(4)xU(2)xSU(2)xSU(2))^2x(U(6)xSp(4))^2 and give the particle spectrum and the trilinear superpotential. Emphasizing the new subtleties associated with the introduction of non-Abelian Wilson lines, we show that the Abelian gauge anomalies are cancelled by the Green-Schwarz-type mechanism, and calculate the Fayet-Iliopoulos terms and gauge coupling corrections. The analysis thus sets a stage for further investigations of the p…
We consider flux vacua for type IIB orientifold compactifications and study their interplay with the tadpole-cancellation condition. As a concrete example we focus on $\mathbb T^6/\mathbb Z_2\times \mathbb Z_2$, for which we find that solutions to the F-term equations at weak coupling, large complex structure and large volume require large flux contributions. Such contributions are however strongly disfavored by the tadpole-cancellation condition. We furthermore find that solutions which stabilize moduli in this perturbatively-controlled regime are only a very small fraction of all solutions, …
We derive the 3D N=1 superpotential for the closed string sector of type IIB supergravity on toroidal O5 orientifolds with co-calibrated G2 structure and RR background flux. We find that such compactifications can provide full closed string moduli stabilization on supersymmetric AdS$_3$ vacua, and once we include brane-supersymmetry-breaking we also find indication for the existence of classical 3D de Sitter solutions. The latter however are rather difficult to reconcile with the shape moduli stabilization and flux quantization. We also discuss the possibility of achieving scale separation in …
We study in detail some aspects of duality between type IIB and M-theory. We focus on the duality between type IIB string theory on K3 x T^2/Z_2 orientifold and M-theory on K3 x K3, in the F-theory limit. We give the explicit map between the fields and in particular between the moduli of compactification, studying their behavior under the F-theory limit. Turning on fluxes generates a potential for the moduli both in type IIB and in M-theory. We verify that the type IIB analysis gives the same results of the F-theory analysis. In particular, we check that the two potentials match.
We study the cancellation of U(1) anomalies in Type I and Type IIB D=4, N=1 string vacua. We first consider the case of compact toroidal $Z_N$ Type IIB orientifolds and then proceed to the non-compact case of Type IIB D3 branes at orbifold and orientifold singularities. Unlike the case of the heterotic string we find that for each given vacuum one has generically more than one U(1) with non-vanishing triangle anomalies. There is a generalized Green-Schwarz mechanism by which these anomalies are cancelled. This involves only the Ramond-Ramond scalars coming from the twisted closed string spectr…
We report on a new class of flux vacua generically present in Calabi-Yau compactifications of type-IIB string theory. At these vacua, the mass spectrum of the complete axio-dilaton/complex structure sector is given, to leading order in $α'$ and $g_s$, by a simple analytic formula independent of the choice of Calabi-Yau. We provide a method to find these vacua, and construct an ensemble of $17,054$ solutions for the Calabi-Yau hypersurface $\mathbb{WP}_{[1,1,1,6,9]}^4$, where the masses of the axio-dilaton and the $272$ complex structure fields can be explicitly computed.
We study type IIB string compactifications in the presence of RR and NSNS fluxes using worldsheet techniques. Vertex operators corresponding to internal RR and NSNS fluxes are constructed in the hybrid formalism with manifest target space supersymmetry. In a simple class of examples, we compute various known physical phenomena such as warping and the generation of a superpotential for complex structure moduli. The results are in precise agreement with the supergravity literature.
We describe type IIB compactifications with varying coupling constant in d=6,7,8,9 dimensions, where part of the ten-dimensional SL(2,Z) symmetry is broken by a background with Gamma_0(n) or Gamma(n) monodromy for n=2,3,4. This extends the known class of F-theory vacua to theories which are dual to heterotic compactifications with reduced rank. On compactifying on a further torus, we obtain a description of the heterotic moduli space of G bundles over elliptically fibered manifolds without vector structure in terms of complex geometries.
In this note we study the mass spectrum of type IIB flux compactifications. We first give a general discussion of the mass matrix for F-term vacua in four-dimensional N=1 supergravity theories and then specialize to type IIB Calabi-Yau orientifold compactifications in the presence of geometric and non-geometric fluxes. F-term vacua in this setting are in general AdS$_4$ vacua for which we compute the conformal dimensions of operators dual to the scalar fields. For the mirror-dual of the DGKT construction we find that one-loop corrections to the complex-structure moduli space lead to real-value…
We analyze the tree-level potential of type IIB flux compactifications in warped Calabi-Yau orientifolds, in regions of weak coupling and moderately large complex structure. In this regime, one may approximate the flux-induced superpotential $W$ by a polynomial on the axio-dilaton and complex structure fields, and a significant fraction of vacua corresponds to a quadratic $W$. In this quadratic case, we argue that vacua fall into three classes, for which one can push the analytic description of their features. In particular, we provide analytic expressions for the vacuum expectation values and…
We propose an uplift mechanism using a structure of multi-Kähler moduli dependence in the F-term potential of type IIB string theory compactifications. This mechanism requires a D-term condition that fixes one modulus to be proportional to another modulus, resulting in a trivial D-term potential. De Sitter minima are realized along with an enhancement of the volume in the Large Volume Scenario and no additional suppression of the uplift term such as warping is required. We further show the possibility to realize the uplift mechanism in the presence of more Kähler moduli such that we expect the…
We generalize the recently proposed mechanism by Demirtas, Kim, McAllister and Moritz arXiv:1912.10047 for the explicit construction of type IIB flux vacua with $|W_0|\ll 1$ to the region close to the conifold locus in the complex structure moduli space. For that purpose tools are developed to determine the periods and the resulting prepotential close to such a codimension one locus with all the remaining moduli still in the large complex structure regime. As a proof of principle we present a working example for the Calabi-Yau manifold $\mathbb{P}_{1,1,2,8,12}[24]$.
We study N=1 compactification of IIB supergravity to AdS4. The internal manifold must have SU(2)-structure. By putting some restrictions on the SU(2) torsion classes, we can perform an exhaustive scan of all possible solutions on group manifolds. We show that sourceless solutions don't exist and that the presence of O5 and O7 orientifolds is mandatory. We also find a new solution and relate it by T-duality to a known type IIA solution with O6 planes.
We study the arguments given in [1] which suggest that the uplifting procedure in the KKLT construction is not valid. First we show that the modification of the SUSY breaking sector of the nilpotent superfield, as proposed in [1], is not consistent with non-linearly realized local supersymmetry of de Sitter supergravity. Keeping this issue aside, we also show that the corresponding bosonic potential does actually describe de Sitter uplifting.
On the Type IIB toroidal T^6 orientifolds with generic flux compactifications, we conjecture that in generic supsersymmetric Minkowski vacua, at least one of the flux contributions to the seven-brane and D3-brane tadpoles is positive if the moduli are stabilized properly, and then the tadpole cancellation conditions can not be relaxed. To study the supsersymmetric Minkowski flux vacua, we simplify the fluxes reasonably and discuss the corresponding superpotential. We show that we can not have simultaneously the positive real parts of all the moduli and the negative/zero flux contributions to a…
We study models of stabilization near large complex structure in type IIB O3/O7 flux compactifications. We consider a special family of examples with a single nonvanishing Yukawa coupling in the large complex structure limit, which allows us to study all possible stable vacua of the tree-level no-scale potential very explicitly. We find that, by tuning fluxes, both supersymmetric and nonsupersymmetric vacua can be realized at almost any point in the large complex structure moduli space of one-, two-, and three-parameter models. We also consider the effects of stringy corrections on tree-level …
We show that there exist supersymmetric Minkowski vacua on Type IIB toroidal orientifold with general flux compactifications where the RR tadpole cancellation conditions can be relaxed elegantly. Then we present a realistic Pati-Salam like model. At the string scale, the gauge symmetry can be broken down to the Standard Model (SM) gauge symmetry, the gauge coupling unification can be achieved naturally, and all the extra chiral exotic particles can be decoupled so that we have the supersymmetric SMs with/without SM singlet(s) below the string scale. The observed SM fermion masses and mixings c…
Only two kinds of compactification are known that lead to four-dimensional supersymmetric AdS vacua with moduli stabilisation and separation of scales at tree-level. The most studied ones are compactifications of massive IIA supergravity on SU(3) structures with smeared O6 planes, for which a general ten-dimensional expression for the solution in terms of the SU(3) structure was found. Less studied are compactifications of IIB supergravity with smeared O5/O7 planes. In this paper we derive a general ten-dimensional expression for the smeared O5/O7 solutions in terms of SU(2) structures. For a …
We discuss a D3-D7 system in type IIB string theory. The near-horizon geometry is described by AdS^5 x X^5 where X^5 is a U(1) bundle over a Kahler-Einstein complex surface S with positive first Chern class c_1>0. The surface S can either be P^1 x P^1, P^2 or P_{n_1,...,n_k}, a blow up of P^2 at k points with 3\leq k\leq 8. The P^2 corresponds to the maximally supersymmetric AdS^5 x S^5 vacuum while the other cases lead to vacua with less supersymmetries. In the F-theory context they can be viewed as compactifications on elliptically fibered almost Fano 3-folds.
We analyze $N=2,1,0$ vacua of type IIB string theory on $K3\times T^2/Z_2$ in presence of three-form fluxes from a four dimensional supergravity viewpoint. The quaternionic geometry of the $K3$ moduli space together with the special geometry of the NS and R-R dilatons and of the $T^2$-complex structure moduli play a crucial role in the analysis. The introduction of fluxes corresponds to a particular gauging of N=2, D=4 supergravity. Our results agree with a recent work of Tripathy and Trivedi. The present formulation shows the power of supergravity in the study of effective theories with broke…
A new class of metastable de Sitter vacua is presented and analyzed in N =1 supergravity and string theory with tunable (infinitesimally small) value of the cosmological constant. They are based on a gauged R-symmetry and the minimal spectrum contains a vector and a linear multiplet of the string dilaton or of a compactification modulus. In the minimum of the scalar potential supersymmetry is broken by an expectation value of both a D- and F-term.
Consistent uplifting of AdS vacua in string theory often requires extra light degrees of freedom in addition to those of a (Kaehler) modulus. Here we consider the possibility that de Sitter and Minkowski vacua arise due to hidden sector matter interactions. We find that, in this scheme, the hierarchically small supersymmetry breaking scale can be explained by the scale of gaugino condensation and that interesting patterns of the soft terms arise. In particular, a matter-dominated supersymmetry breaking scenario and a version of the mirage mediation scheme appear in the framework of spontaneous…
We describe several applications of the recently proposed mass production procedure, where multiple moduli are stabilized in a dS vacuum, in supergravity models inspired by string theory. The construction involves a small downshift of an initial supersymmetric Minkowski minimum to a supersymmetric AdS minimum, and a consequent small uplift to a dS minimum. Our type IIA examples include dS stabilization in a 7-moduli model with $[SL(2, \mathbb{R})]^7$ tree level symmetry, and its simplified version, a 3-moduli STU model. In these models, we use uplifting anti-D6 branes. In type IIB models, we p…
Using a 10D lift of non-perturbative volume stabilization in type IIB string theory we study the limitations for obtaining de Sitter vacua. Based on this we find that the simplest KKLT vacua with a single Kahler modulus stabilized by a gaugino condensate cannot be uplifted to de Sitter. Rather, the uplift flattens out due to stronger backreaction on the volume modulus than has previously been anticipated, resulting in vacua which are meta-stable and SUSY breaking, but that are always AdS. However, we also show that setups such as racetrack stabilization can avoid this issue. In these models it…
We present a new Type IIB supergravity background of the warped form AdS$_4\times \mathcal{M}_6$ with dilaton, $B$-field and all Ramond-Ramond fluxes turned on. We obtain the solution by applying non-Abelian T-duality to a certain representative of a class of AdS$_4$ backgrounds in massive IIA supergravity. By explicitly constructing the Killing spinor of the seed solution and using an argument involving Kosmann spinorial Lie derivative we demonstrate that the background is supersymmetric.
Description of the spectrum of fluctuations around a commutative vacuum solution, as well as around a solution with degenerate commutator in IIB matrix model is given in terms of supersymmetric Yang-Mills (YM) model. We construct explicitly the map from Hermitian matrices to YM fields and study the dependence of the spectrum and respective YM model on the symmetries of the solution. The gauge algebra of the YM model is shown to contain local reparameterisation algebra as well as Virasoro one.
We explore the possibility of obtaining de Sitter vacua in strongly coupled heterotic models by adding various corrections to the supergravity potential energy. We show that, in a generic compactification scenario, Fayet-Iliopoulos terms can generate a de Sitter vacuum. The cosmological constant in this vacuum can be fine tuned to be consistent with observation. We also study moduli potentials in non-supersymmetric compactifications of $E_8 \times E_8$ theory with anti five-branes and $E_8 \times \bar E_8$ theory. We argue that they can be used to create a de Sitter vacuum only if some of the …
The rôle of string loop corrections on the existence of de Sitter vacua and the moduli stabilization problem is examined in type IIB effective theories. The fundamental building blocks are a minimum of three intersecting D7 brane stacks, three Kähler moduli, and a novel Einstein-Hilbert term associated with higher derivative terms of the 10-dimensional effective action. It was shown in previous works that loop corrections appear which induce novel logarithmic volume-dependent terms in the effective potential. When D-term contributions are considered, all Kähler moduli are stabilized and de Sit…
It has not been clarified whether a matrix model can describe various vacua of string theory. In this paper, we show that the IIB matrix model includes type IIA string theory. In the naive large N limit of the IIB matrix model, configurations consisting of simultaneously diagonalizable matrices form a moduli space, although the unique vacuum would be determined by complicated dynamics. This moduli space should correspond to a part of perturbatively stable vacua of string theory. Actually, one point on the moduli space represents type IIA string theory. Instead of integrating over the moduli sp…
We construct new semi-realistic Type IIB flux vacua on $Z_2\times Z_2$ orientifolds with three- and four- Standard Model (SM) families and up to three units of quantized flux. The open-string sector is comprised of magnetized D-branes and is T-dual to supersymmetric intersecting D6-brane constructions. The SM sector contains magnetized D9-branes with negative D3-brane charge contribution. There are large classes of such models and we present explicit constructions for representative ones. In addition to models with one and two units of quantized flux, we also construct the first three- and fou…
In order for string theory to be made compatible with the low-energy observations of a positive cosmological constant, there have been attempts to construct dS vacua in string theory which are particularly difficult to realize. Instead of attempting to find de Sitter (dS) vacuum solutions, we point to a new way to make string theory consistent with low-energy dS cosmology. In this way, string theory lives in an anti-de Sitter (AdS) vacuum (which is simple to construct) that exists only in the high-energy regime; however, as going to the low-energy scales where the heavy string excitations and …
We study the possibility of using the D-term associated to an anomalous U(1) for the uplifting of AdS vacua (to dS or Minkowski vacua) in effective supergravities arising from string theories, particularly in the type IIB context put forward by Kachru, Kallosh, Linde and Trivedi (KKLT). We find a gauge invariant formulation of such a scenario (avoiding previous inconsistencies), where the anomalous D-term cannot be cancelled, thus triggering the uplifting of the vacua. Then, we examine the general conditions for this to happen. Finally, we illustrate the results by presenting different success…
We introduce a new mechanism for producing locally stable de-Sitter or Minkowski vacua, with spontaneously broken N=1 supersymmetry and no massless scalars, applicable to superstring and M-theory compactifications with fluxes. We illustrate the mechanism with a simple N=1 supergravity model that provides parametric control on the sign and the size of the vacuum energy. The crucial ingredient is a gauged U(1) that involves both an axionic shift and an R-symmetry, and severely constrains the F- and D-term contributions to the potential.
We study maximally supersymmetric Anti-de Sitter backgrounds in consistent N=2 truncations of type IIB supergravity compactified on the Sasaki-Einstein manifold $T^{1,1}$. In particular, we focus on truncations that contain fields coming from the nontrivial second and third cohomology forms on $T^{1,1}$. These give rise to N=2 supergravity coupled to two vector- and two hypermultiplets (Betti-vector truncation) or one vector- and three hypermultiplets (Betti-hyper truncation), respectively. We find that both truncations admit AdS$_5$ backgrounds with the gauge group always being broken but con…
We study the instability of de Sitter space-time (dS) under thermal radiation in different vacua. We argue that the mode function solution of a scalar field in four-dimensional dS can be separated into the incoming and outgoing modes. Different vacua for dS are realized by different combinations of positive frequency modes assigned to each solution. For a minimally coupled massless scalar field, we explicitly compute the behavior of the mode function and the corresponding energy-momentum tensor in the Unruh vacuum near the horizon, and find that the horizon area increases (decreases) in time w…
The properties of the effective scalar potential are studied in the framework of type IIB string theory, taking into account perturbative and non-perturbative corrections. The former modify the Kähler potential and include $α'$ and logarithmic corrections generated when intersecting D7 branes are part of the internal geometric configuration. The latter add exponentially suppressed Kähler moduli dependent terms to the fluxed superpotential. The possibility of partial elimination of such terms which may happen for particular choices of world fluxes is also taken into account. That being the case…
We study the correspondence between the moduli space of vacua of three-dimensional supersymmetric Yang-Mills (Maxwell) Chern-Simons theories and brane configurations with (p,q)5-brane. For Coulomb branches, the number of the massless adjoint scalar fields in various supersymmetric theories exactly coincides with the number of the freely moving directions of D3-branes stretched between two 5-branes. When we include a matter superfield into the supersymmetric Chern-Simons theory two distinct symmetric and asymmetric phase appear. The symmetric phase is peculiar to this Chern-Simons Higgs system.…
We generalize the analysis of arXiv:1210.7244 to de Sitter space α-vacua and compute the entanglement entropy of a free scalar for the half-sphere at late time.
We find analytic solutions of type IIB supergravity on geometries that locally take the form $\text{Mink}\times M_4\times \mathbb{C}$ with $M_4$ a generalised complex manifold. The solutions involve the metric, the dilaton, NSNS and RR flux potentials (oriented along the $M_4$) parametrised by functions varying only over $\mathbb{C}$. Under this assumption, the supersymmetry equations are solved using the formalism of pure spinors in terms of a finite number of holomorphic functions. Alternatively, the solutions can be viewed as vacua of maximally supersymmetric supergravity in six dimensions …
We present a new way to construct de Sitter vacua in type IIB flux compactifications, in which the interplay of the leading perturbative and non-perturbative effects stabilize all moduli in dS vacua at parametrically large volume. Here, the closed string fluxes fix the dilaton and the complex structure moduli while the universal leading perturbative quantum correction to the Kahler potential together with non-perturbative effects stabilize the volume Kahler modulus in a dS_4-vacuum. Since the quantum correction is known exactly and can be kept parametrically small, this construction leads to c…
We construct non-perturbatively exact four-dimensional Minkowski vacua of type IIB string theory with non-trivial fluxes. These solutions are found by gluing together, consistently with U-duality, local solutions of type IIB supergravity on $T^4 \times \mathbb{C}$ with the metric, dilaton and flux potentials varying along $\mathbb{C}$ and the flux potentials oriented along $T^4$. We focus on solutions locally related via U-duality to non-compact Ricci-flat geometries. More general solutions and a complete analysis of the supersymmetry equations are presented in the companion paper [1]. We buil…
We construct a new class of metastable de Sitter vacua of flux compactifications of type IIB string theory. These solutions provide a natural extension of the `Large Volume Scenario' anti-de Sitter vacua, and can analogously be realised at parametrically large volume and weak string coupling, using standard ${\cal N}=1$ supergravity. For these new vacua, a positive vacuum energy is achieved from the inclusion of a small amount of flux-induced supersymmetry breaking in the complex structure and axio-dilaton sector, and no additional `uplift' contribution (e.g.~from anti-branes) is required. We …
We find 5D gauged supergravity theories exhibiting stable de Sitter vacua. These are the first examples of stable de Sitter vacua in higher-dimensional (D>4) supergravity. Non-compact gaugings with tensor multiplets and R-symmetry gauging seem to be the essential ingredients in these models. They are however not sufficient to guarantee stable de Sitter vacua, as we show by investigating several other models. The qualitative behaviour of the potential also seems to depend crucially on the geometry of the scalar manifold.
