nLab flux compactification

Contents

Context

String theory

Gravity

Contents

Idea

Flux compactifications are Kaluza-Klein compactification where a gauge field or higher gauge field has non-trivial field strength, hence “generalized electromagnetic flux” in the fiber-spaces, whose repulsive force counteracts the collapsing force of gravity on the compact fiber spaces.

Applied to supergravity this may in particular yield perturbative string theory vacua.

One way of achieving moduli stabilization for KK-compactifications in Einstein-Maxwell theory or supergravity/string theory is to consider gauge fields and/or higher gauge fields in the compact space. Their (higher) field strength/curvature forms (“fluxes”) parameterize mass terms for the compactification moduli and hence may, under suitable conditions, stabilize them.

References

A good survey of the story of flux compactifications in F-theory is in

For F-theory-discussion see also at F-theory – References – Flux compactification.

See also

With RR-field tadpole cancellation taken into account:

  • Philip Betzler, Erik Plauschinn, Type IIB flux vacua and tadpole cancellation (arXiv:1905.08823)

See also:

On non-geometric flux vacua:

  • Ralph Blumenhagen, A. Deser, E. Plauschinn, F. Rennecke, Bianchi identities for non-geometric fluxes: from quasi-Poisson structures to Courant algebroids, arXiv:1205.1522

  • D. Mylonas, Peter Schupp, Richard Szabo, Membrane sigma-models and quantization of non-geometric flux backgrounds, arxiv/1207.0926

Last revised on February 2, 2024 at 04:51:49. See the history of this page for a list of all contributions to it.