Physicists find new way to build stable universes in string theory
Researchers have discovered a mathematical construction that could resolve decades-old tensions in M-theory, a leading candidate for unifying physics. The breakthrough challenges existing predictions about what's possible in string theory and may guide experimentalists toward testable versions of the theory.
Originaltitel: Weak <em>G<sub>2</sub></em> manifolds and scale separation in M-theory from type IIA backgrounds
<p>This work provides evidence for the existence of supersymmetric and scale-separated AdS4 vacua in Mtheory of the Freund-Rubin type. The internal space has weak G2-holonomy, which is obtained from the lift of AdS (anti-de Sitter) vacua in massless type IIA on a specific SU(3) structure with O6-planes. Such lifts require a local treatment of the O6-planes, therefore going beyond the usual smeared approximation. The setup is analyzed by solving the pure spinor equations and the Bianchi identities perturbatively in a small backreaction parameter, preserving supersymmetry manifestly and therefore extending on previous work. This approach is applicable to lifts of other type IIA vacua on half-flat SU(3) structures, including those with D6-brane sources. The resulting 7D manifold presented here exhibits singularities originating from the O6-planes loci in type IIA theory. Additionally, scale separation in M-theory arises from a decoupling between the Ricci curvature and the first eigenvalue of the Laplacian of the proposed 7D manifold, thereby challenging certain conjectures in the swampland program.</p>