In this note we consider whether there could be Swampland constraints associated to the presence of fermions in the theory. We propose that any fermion must couple to an infinite tower of states, and that the mass scale of this tower, in Planck units, is set by the strength of the Yukawa coupling to the tower. This is a type of fermionic version of the (magnetic) Weak Gravity Conjecture. We also find that supersymmetry plays a natural part in this fermionic realisation, which motivates a further proposal that supersymmetry can only be broken below the scale set by this Yukawa coupling. We perform some preliminary checks in string theory of these ideas.
The Swampland Distance Conjecture states that at infinite distance in the scalar moduli space an infinite tower of particles become exponentially massless. We study this issue in the context of 4d type IIA and type IIB Calabi-Yau compactifications. We find that for large moduli not only towers of particles but also domain walls and strings become tensionless. We study in detail the case of type IIA and IIB ${\cal N}=1$ CY orientifolds and show how for infinite Kähler and/or complex structure moduli towers of domain walls and strings become tensionless, depending on the particular direction in …
We use numerical methods to obtain moduli-dependent Calabi-Yau metrics and from them the moduli-dependent massive tower of Kaluza-Klein states for the one-parameter family of quintic Calabi-Yau manifolds. We then compute geodesic distances in their Kähler and complex structure moduli space using exact expressions from mirror symmetry, approximate expressions, and numerical methods and compare the results. Finally, we fit the moduli-dependence of the massive spectrum to the geodesic distance to obtain the rate at which states become exponentially light. The result is indeed of order one, as sug…
The Swampland Distance Conjecture suggests that an infinite tower of modes becomes exponentially light when approaching a point that is at infinite proper distance in field space. In this paper we investigate this conjecture in the Kähler moduli spaces of Calabi-Yau threefold compactifications and further elucidate the proposal that the infinite tower of states is generated by the discrete symmetries associated to infinite distance points. In the large volume regime the infinite tower of states is generated by the action of the local monodromy matrices and encoded by an orbit of D-brane charge…
We study aspects of anti-de Sitter space in the context of the Swampland. In particular, we conjecture that the near-flat limit of pure AdS belongs to the Swampland, as it is necessarily accompanied by an infinite tower of light states. The mass of the tower is power-law in the cosmological constant, with a power of $\frac{1}{2}$ for the supersymmetric case. We discuss relations between this behaviour and other Swampland conjectures such as the censorship of an unbounded number of massless fields, and the refined de Sitter conjecture. Moreover, we propose that changes to the AdS radius have an…
We study the implications on inflation of an infinite tower of higher-spin states with masses falling exponentially at large field distances, as dictated by the Swampland Distance Conjecture. We show that the Higuchi lower bound on the mass of the tower automatically translates into an upper bound on the inflaton excursion. Strikingly, the mere existence of all spins in the tower forbids any scalar displacement whatsoever, at arbitrarily small Hubble scales, and it turns out therefore incompatible with inflation. A certain field excursion is allowed only if the tower has a cut-off in spin. Fin…
By applying the Covariant Entropy Bound (CEB) to an EFT in a box of size $1/Λ_{\text{IR}}$ one obtains that the UV and IR cut-offs of the EFT are necessarily correlated. We argue that in a theory of Quantum Gravity (QG) one should identify the UV cutoff with the `species scale', and give a general algorithm to calculate it in the case of multiple towers becoming light. One then obtains an upper bound on the characteristic mass scale of the tower in terms of the IR cut-off, given by $M_{\text{tower}}\lesssim (Λ_{\text{IR}})^{2α_D}$ in Planck units, with $α_D=(D-2+p)/2p(D-1)$, where $p$ depends …
Inflationary Particle Production and the Swampland
Max-Planck-Institut für Physik (Werner-Heisenberg-Institut)（马克斯·普朗克物理研究所）；Arnold-Sommerfeld-Center for Theoretical Physics, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität（慕尼黑大学阿诺德·索末菲理论物理中心）；CERN, Theoretical Physics Department（欧洲核子研究中心理论物理部）；Instituto de Estructura de la Materia (IEM), CSIC（西班牙国家研究委员会物质结构研究所）；Department of Physics and Astronomy “Ettore Majorana”, University of Catania（卡塔尼亚大学埃托雷·马约拉纳物理与天文学系）；INFN-Sezione di Catania（意大利国家核物理研究所卡塔尼亚分部）
We propose a new swampland conjecture stating that the limit of vanishing gravitino mass corresponds to the massless limit of an infinite tower of states and to the consequent breakdown of the effective field theory. We test our proposal in large classes of models coming from compactification of string theory to four dimensions, where we identify the Kaluza-Klein nature of the tower of states becoming light. We point out a general relation between the gravitino mass and abelian gauge coupling in models with extended supersymmetry, which can survive also in examples with minimal supersymmetry. …
Recent string theory tests of swampland ideas like the distance or the dS conjectures have been performed at weak coupling. Testing these ideas beyond the weak coupling regime remains challenging. We propose to exploit the modular symmetries of the moduli effective action to check swampland constraints beyond perturbation theory. As an example we study the case of heterotic 4d $\mathcal{N}=1$ compactifications, whose non-perturbative effective action is known to be invariant under modular symmetries acting on the Kähler and complex structure moduli, in particular $SL(2,Z)$ T-dualities (or subg…
We study the Swampland Distance Conjecture for supersymmetric theories with AdS${}_5$ backgrounds and fixed radius through their $\mathcal{N}=2$ SCFT holographic duals. By the Maldacena-Zhiboedov theorem, around a large class of infinite-distance points there must exist a tower of exponentially massless higher-spin fields in the bulk, for which we find bounds on the decay rate in terms of the conformal data. We discuss the origin of this tower in the gravity side for type IIB compactification on $S^5$ and its orbifolds, and comment about more general cases.
In the first part of this paper we will work out a close and so far not yet noticed correspondence between the swampland approach in quantum gravity and geometric flow equations in general relativity, most notably the Ricci flow. We conjecture that following the gradient flow towards a fixed point, which is at infinite distance in the space of background metrics, is accompanied by an infinite tower of states in quantum gravity. In case of the Ricci flow, this conjecture is in accordance with the generalized distance and AdS distance conjectures, which were recently discussed in the literature,…
We consider constraints on $D$-dimensional theories in $M_D$, $dS_D$ and $AdS_D$ backgrounds in the light of AdS swampland conjectures as applied to their compactification in a circle. In particular we consider the non-SUSY AdS instability conjecture and the AdS distance conjecture. For $M_D$ and $dS_D$ vacua the results may be summarized by a light fermion conjecture which states that in theories with $Λ_D\geq 0$ and a positive first non-vanishing supertrace $(-1)^{k+1}\text{Str} M^{2k}>0$, a surplus of light fermions with mass $m_f\lesssim Λ_D^{1/D}$ must be present. On the contrary, the cas…
[Abridged] We realize the Agrawal-Obied-Vafa (AOV) swampland proposal of fading dark matter by the model of Salam-Sezgin and its string realization of Cvetic-Gibbons-Pope. The model describes a compactification of 6-dimensional supergravity with a monopole background on a 2-sphere. In 4 dimensions, there are 2 scalar fields, $X$ and $Y $, and the effective potential in the Einstein frame is an exponential with respect to $Y$ times a quadratic polynomial in the field $e^{-X}$. When making the volume of the 2-sphere large, namely for large values of $Y$, there appears a tower of states, which ac…
The form factor bootstrap in integrable quantum field theory allows one to capture local fields in terms of infinite sequences of Laurent polynomials called `towers'. For the sine-Gordon model, towers are systematically described by fermions introduced some time ago by Babelon, Bernard and Smirnov. Recently the authors developed a new method for evaluating one-point functions of descendant fields, using yet another fermions which act on the space of local fields. The goal of this paper is to establish that these two fermions are one and the same object. This opens up a way for answering the lo…
We study effects of backreaction of the fermionic modes localized by the baby Skyrmion in the (2+1)-dimensional Skyrme model. It is shown that there is a tower of fermionic modes of two different types, localized by the soliton, however there is only one fermionic level, which flows from positive to negative value as coupling increases. Considering the strong coupling regime we observe that the coupling of the bosonic field to the fermions may strongly deform the Skyrmion, in particular the regions of negative topological charge density appear.
The Gross-Neveu model defines a unitary CFT of interacting fermions in $2<d<4$ which has perturbative descriptions in the $1/N$ expansion and in the epsilon-expansion near two and four dimensions. In each of these descriptions, the CFT has an infinite tower of nearly conserved currents of all spins. We determine the structure of the non-conservation equations both at large $N$ and in the epsilon-expansion, and use it to find the leading order anomalous dimensions of the broken currents. Similarly, we use the fact that the CFT spectrum includes a nearly free fermion to fix the leading anomalous…
Exact group invariant scar towers in two dimensional gauge theories
CERN（欧洲核子研究中心）；Institute for Theoretical Physics, ETH Zurich（苏黎世联邦理工学院理论物理研究所）；Department of Physics, University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU（巴斯克大学物理系）；IKERBASQUE, Basque Foundation for Science（伊克尔巴斯科奎，巴斯克科学基金会）
In the context of warped extra-dimensional models which address both the Planck-weak- and flavor-hierarchies of the Standard Model (SM), it has been argued that certain observables can be calculated within the 5D effective field theory only with the Higgs field propagating in the bulk of the extra dimension, just like other SM fields. The related studies also suggested an interesting form of decoupling of the heavy Kaluza-Klein (KK) fermion states in the warped 5D SM in the limit where the profile of the SM Higgs approaches the IR brane. We demonstrate that a similar phenomenon occurs when we …
We study the spin 1/2 and spin 3/2 fermion fields in a thick braneworld scenario in six dimensions called string-cigar model. This smooth string-like model has a source that satisfies the dominant energy condition and undergoes a Ricci flow. We propose a new coupling for the fermions with a background gauge field which allows a smooth and normalized massless mode in the brane with positive tension. By numerical methods the mass spectrum and the massive eigenfunctions are obtained. The Kaluza-Klein massive tower exhibits the usual increasing pattern and, in this scenario, the coupling term does…
The SYK model, a quantum mechanical model of $N \gg 1$ Majorana fermions $χ_i$, with a $q$-body, random interaction, is a novel realization of holography. It is known that the AdS$_2$ dual contains a tower of massive particles, yet there is at present no proposal for the bulk theory. As SYK is solvable in the $1/N$ expansion, one can systematically derive the bulk. We initiate such a program, by analyzing the fermion two, four and six-point functions, from which we extract the tower of singlet, large $N$ dominant, operators, their dimensions, and their three-point correlation functions. These …
We consider SU(2)-equivariant dimensional reduction of Yang-Mills-Dirac theory on manifolds of the form M x CP(1), with emphasis on the effects of non-trivial magnetic flux on CP(1). The reduction of Yang-Mills fields gives a chain of coupled Yang-Mills-Higgs systems on M with a Higgs potential leading to dynamical symmetry breaking, as a consequence of the monopole fields. The reduction of SU(2)-symmetric fermions gives massless Dirac fermions on M transforming under the low-energy gauge group with Yukawa couplings, again as a result of the internal U(1) fluxes. The tower of massive fermionic…
RG Dynamics of Irrelevant Fermion Operators and the Drag Coupling Mechanism
Universitat de Barcelona（巴塞罗那大学）；Universidad de Oviedo（奥维耶多大学）；Instituto Universitario de Ciencias y Tecnologías Espaciales de Asturias (ICTEA)（阿斯图里亚斯宇宙科学与技术大学研究所）；Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats (ICREA)（加泰罗尼亚高级研究学院）
We show that there exists an infinite tower of fermionic symmetries in pure $d=4$, $\mathcal{N}=1$ supergravity on an asymptotically flat background. The Ward identities associated with these symmetries are equivalent to the soft limit of the gravitino and to the statement of supersymmetry at every angle. Additionally, we show that these charges commute into charges associated with the (unextended) BMS group, providing a supersymmetrization of the BMS translations.
Previously predicted by the $S$-matrix bootstrap of the excitations over the GKP quantum vacuum, the appearance of a new particle at strong coupling -- formed by one fermion and one anti-fermion -- is here confirmed: this two-dimensional meson shows up, along with its infinite tower of bound states, while analysing the fermionic contributions to the Operator Product Expansion (collinear regime) of the Wilson null polygon loop. Moreover, its existence, free \footnote{This term is used here as opposite to bound, thus as {\it unbound}.} and bound, turns out to be a powerful idea in re-summing all…
Intersecting D-brane models and their T-dual magnetic compactifications yield attractive models of particle physics where magnetic flux plays a twofold role, being the source of fermion chirality as well as supersymmetry breaking. A potential problem of these models is the appearance of tachyons which can only be avoided in certain regions of moduli space and in the presence of Wilson lines. We study the effective four-dimensional field theory for an orientifold compactification of type IIA string theory and the corresponding toroidal compactification of type I string theory. After determining…
