Physics Diary

# Update: My Dissertation in Non-perturbative String Theory – Thinking about Emergent Geometry

The week has come where I need to refine and perfect my dissertation topic. There are a number of constraints around my dissertation this year, and, as my professor has been teaching me, there is also a degree of necessary pragmatism to which I must heed.

Over the course of the last year, especially since my academic acceleration from an undergraduate degree to an MRes, I have spent most of my time reading as much pure theory as I can at the frontier. After a year of reading what I would estimate to be 100s of research papers from all different areas of string / M – theory, as well as across mathematical physics more generally, I have been piecing together as much of the ‘total picture’ as possible. Along the way I also developed several distractions, covered quite a bit of the Swampland, studied the Braneworld formalism, and also started to get a taste of things like noncommutative geometry. All-encompassing, is perhaps one description of how I’ve spent my time in the last 12 months or so.

For me, I often need to start with the endgame and then work from there; so after cramming so much pure theory, learning about what others at the frontier of string / M-theory are thinking, what directions we might take, and what I might be able to do moving forward, I decided that my own research direction must start with nonperturbative theory. It is what I find most challenging and where, currently, I would like to focus my PhD and extended research over the next years. It is also a channel that allows me to drive ever closer to the foundations of string theory and numerous relevant pertinent questions.

So the good news is that, in the sea of frontier physics and with endlessly interesting possible research topics, I have managed to constrain my focus. This is a major success, especially as my tendency is to want to study and write about everything and anything.

And so this year, for my MRes, my main focus is to significantly advance my studies in nonperturbative string theory (and string geometry). The list of possible research projects within this context remains vast. But to constrain my focus further, I have been moving toward and narrowing in on a project in the area of emergent geometry.

One motivation is an idea I find quite tantalising: namely, in quantum gravity, spacetime geometry is an emergent phenomenon. There are many reasons why we think that, given the mounting evidence in string theory, space and time are actually emergent phenomena. I will reserve a separate article for a detailed explanation. The fact is that string theory challenges us to think of geometry in new ways. The implications of the theory alters how we may approach the question of a generalised geometry, which extends beyond the picture we see for instance in General Relativity (GR).

In working on a project that considers the concept of emergent geometry, one of a number of exciting features is that it would also entail working in gauge / gravity duality. The gauge theory I would be working with are matrix models, which means I would get to learn matrix theory which is something I desperately want to study this academic year. An example of possible research activity would be to review and then experiment with constructing geometric probes using strings and branes, studying the various affects on the local field theory. Another example would be to experiment with holographic matrix models as a means to probe the emergence of geometry, which, in this case, would come from matrix coordinates.

Having said all of that, my primary research question has not yet been set, as this is something that I will be thinking about and discussing in the next week, prior to meeting my professor.

I look forward to writing more about these topics in time.

*Image: Watercube by Marina Lazareva motivated by Scottish mathematical biologist Sir D’arcy Thompson and his famous publication ‘Growth and Form’.

Standard
Stringy Things

# Notes on String Theory: Ward Identities, Noether’s Theorem, and OPEs

1.1. Example 1

In the last entry we derived both the quantum version of Noether’s theorem and the Ward identity given in Polchinski’s textbook. This means we obtained the idea of the existence of conserved currents and how Ward identities in general constrain the operator products of these same currents. Let us now elaborate on some examples. The solutions to these examples are given in Polchinski (p.43); however, a more detailed review of the computation and of some of the key concepts will be provided below.

We start with the simplest example, where we once again invoke the theory of free massless scalars. Following Polchinski, the idea is that we want to perform a simple spacetime translation ${\delta X^{\mu} = \epsilon a^{\mu}}$. The action will be left invariant under worldsheet symmetry. But as what we want to derive is the current, given what we have been discussing, this means we should pay special attention to the fact that we are required to add ${\rho (\sigma)}$ to the above translation. Recall that we defined ${\rho(\sigma)}$ in our derivation of the Ward identity. The important point to note is that, again, the action is still invariant and from past discussions we already understand ${\rho(\sigma)}$ has a compact or finite support. From this set-up, let us now rewrite the action for massless scalars,

$\displaystyle S_{P} = \frac{1}{4\pi \alpha^{\prime}} \int d^2\sigma \partial X^{\mu}\partial X_{\mu} \ \ (1)$

When we vary (1) we obtain the following,

$\displaystyle \delta S = \frac{\epsilon a_{\mu}}{2\pi \alpha^{\prime}} \int d^2 \sigma \partial^{a}X^{\mu} \partial_{a}\rho \ \ (2)$

There is a factor of 2 from varying ${\partial X}$ that gives us a reduced denominator. We have also used the identity stated in Polchinski’s textbook, namely ${\delta X^{\mu}(\sigma) = \epsilon \rho(\sigma) a^{\mu}}$, where we can treat ${\epsilon}$ and ${a^{\mu}}$ as constants and therefore pull them in front of the integral.

Before we can move forward, there is something we have to remember. Recall the path integral formulation from our last discussion, where we found the variation to be proportional to the gradient. The result is written again below for convenience,

$\displaystyle [d\phi^{\prime}]e^{-S[\phi^{\prime}]} = [d\phi]e^{-S[\phi]}[1 + \frac{i\epsilon}{2\pi} \int d^2\sigma J^{a}\partial_{a}\rho + \mathcal{O}(\epsilon)^2] \ \ (3)$

If there is no contribution from the metric, then the measure in brackets becomes ${- \delta S}$. What this tells us is that the variation must be something like,

$\displaystyle \delta S = -\frac{i\epsilon}{2\pi} \int d^2\sigma J^{a}\partial_{a}\rho \ \ (4)$

Now notice, in computing both (2) and (4) we may establish the following interesting relation,

$\displaystyle \partial^{a}X_{a} \partial_{a} \rho \frac{\epsilon a_{\mu}}{2\pi \alpha^{\prime}} = -\frac{i\epsilon}{2\pi}J^{a} \partial_{a}\rho \ \ (5)$

The first step is to simplify. Immediately, we can see that we can cancel the ${\partial_{a}\rho}$ terms on both sides,

$\displaystyle \partial_{a}X^{\mu} \frac{\epsilon a_{\mu}}{2\pi \alpha^{\prime}} = -\frac{i\epsilon}{2\pi}J_{a} \ \ (6)$

This still leaves us with a bit of a mess. What we need to do is recall another useful fact. In the last section we studied the invariance of the path integral under change of variables, which, at the time, enabled us to obtain Noether’s theorem as an operator equation. Explicitly put, we had something of the general form ${ \frac{\epsilon}{2\pi i} \int d^{d} \sigma \sqrt{g} \rho(\sigma) \langle \nabla_{a}J^{a}(\sigma) ... \rangle}$. Notice that we have all of the ingredients. Given the Noether current is,

$\displaystyle J_{a} = a_{\mu}J_{a}^{\mu}$

We may substitute for ${J_{a}}$ in (6) and then work through the obvious cancellations that appear, including a cancellation of signs. Once this is done, we go on to obtain the following expression for the current,

$\displaystyle J_{a}^{\mu} = \frac{i}{\alpha^{\prime}} \partial_{a}X^{\mu} \ \ (7)$

Which is precisely what Polchinski gives in eqn. (2.3.13) on p.43 of his textbook. Automatically, we can see our currents are conserved. And, of course, we are free to switch to holomorphic and antiholomorphic indices and we can do so with relative ease,

$\displaystyle J_{a}^{\mu} = \frac{1}{\alpha^{\prime}}\partial X^{\mu}$

$\displaystyle \bar{J}_{a}^{\mu} = \frac{1}{\alpha^{\prime}}\bar{\partial} X^{\mu} \ \ (8)$

In the manner indicated above, we have successfully constructed the current following a spacetime translation. For this example the goal is to now use an operator to check the Ward identity and see if the overall logic is sound. What we require in the process are the appropriate residues, and to find these we will need to compute the OPEs. So to test some of the ideas from earlier discussions in the context of the given example.

Recall the formula for OPEs given the reverse of the sum of subtractions, namely the sum of contractions, as described in (11) of this post. In this formula recall that we have two operators which are normal ordered, $: \mathcal{F}:$ and $: \mathcal{G}:$. These are arbitrary functionals of X and typically the range of X is non-compact.

Now, in Polchinski’s first example we consider the case where ${\mathcal{F} = J_{a}^{\mu}}$ and ${\mathcal{G} = e^{ikX(z, \bar{z})}}$. In other words, we want to compute the product of the current and the exponential operator. As the product is normal ordered, there are no singularities and the classical equations of motion are satisfied. Instead, the singularities are produced from the contractions, or, in this case, the cross-contractions as ${z \rightarrow z_{0}}$. Furthermore, as a sort of empirical rule, it can be said that the most singular term in ${\frac{1}{z - z_{0}}}$ comes from the most cross-contractions. And we should recall that we compute the cross-contractions by hitting our operators with ${\delta / \delta X^{\mu}_{\mathcal{F}}}$ and ${\delta / \delta X^{\mu}_{\mathcal{G}}}$, respectively. Hence, from the master formula for cross-contractions,

$\displaystyle : \frac{i}{\alpha^{\prime}} :\partial X^\mu(z): :e^{ik X(z_0,{\bar z_{0}})}: = \exp [- \frac{\alpha^{\prime}}{2} \int d^2 z_1 d^2 z_2 \ln \mid z_{12}\mid^2 \frac{\delta}{\delta X_{\mathcal{F}}^{\mu}(z_1, \bar{z}_1)} \frac{\delta}{\delta X_{\mathcal{G} \mu}(z_2, \bar {z}_2)}] \ \ :\frac{i}{\alpha^{\prime}} \partial X^\mu(z) e^{i k X(z_{0},\bar{z}_{0})}:$

$\displaystyle = : \frac{i}{\alpha^{\prime}} \partial X^{\mu}(z) e^{i k X(z_{0},\bar{z}_{0})} : - \frac{i}{2} : \int d^2 z_1 d^2 z_2 \ln \mid z_{12} \mid^2 \frac{\delta(\partial X^{\mu}(z))}{\delta X_{\mathcal{F}}^{\mu}(z_1, \bar{z}_1)} \frac{\delta ( e^{i k X(z_0, \bar{z}_0)})}{\delta X_{\mathcal{G} \mu}(z_2, \bar{z}_2)} \ \ (9)$

Note that for ${\mathcal{G}}$, which, in this case is ${e^{ikX}}$, it is an eigenfunctional of ${\delta / \delta X_{\mathcal{G}} (z_{2}, \bar{z}_{2})}$. Likewise, for for ${\delta / \delta X_{\mathcal{F}}}$ we will end up with a delta function,

$\displaystyle = : \frac{i}{\alpha^{\prime}} \partial X^{\mu}(z) e^{i k X(z_{0},\bar{z}_{0})} : - \frac{i}{2} : \int d^2 z_1 d^2 z_2 \ln \mid z_{12} \mid^2 \partial (\delta^{\mu}_{\alpha} \delta^2(z_1, z)) i k^{\alpha} \delta^2(z_2, z_0) e^{i k X(z_{0}, \bar{z}_0)} : \ \ (10)$

Now, we can pull out the $ik^{\mu}$ which flips the sign,

$\displaystyle = : \frac{i}{\alpha^{\prime}} \partial X^{\mu}(z) e^{i k X(z_{0},\bar{z}_{0})}: + \frac{k^{\mu}}{2} : \partial (\int d^2 z_1 d^2 z_2 \ln \mid z_{12} \mid^2 \delta^2(z_1, z) \delta^2(z_2, z_{0}) e^{i k X(z_{0},\bar{z}_0)}) : \ \ (11)$

Notice that we have delta functions inside the integrand, so we are left with,

$\displaystyle : \frac{i}{\alpha^{\prime}} \partial X^{\mu}(z) e^{i k X(z_{0},\bar{z}_{0})} : + \frac{k^{\mu}}{2} : \partial ( \ln \mid z - z_{0} \mid^2 e^{i k X(z_0,\bar{z}_0)}) :$

$\displaystyle = : \frac{i}{\alpha^{\prime}} \partial X^{\mu}(z) e^{i k X(z_{0},\bar{z}_{0})} : + \frac{k^{\mu}}{2 (z - z_{0})} e^{i k X(z_0,\bar{z}_0)} \ \ (12)$

And so we obtain the following result,

$\displaystyle \frac{i}{\alpha^{\prime}} : \partial_{a}X^{\mu} : :e^{ikX}: \sim \frac{k^{\mu}}{2 (z - z_{0})} : e^{ikX}: \ \ (13)$

Where ${\sim}$ means the most singular pieces. We can also perform the same calculations for the antiholomorphic term,

$\displaystyle \frac{i}{\alpha^{\prime}} : \bar{\partial}X^{\mu}: : e^{ikX}: \sim \frac{k^{\mu}}{2(\bar{z} - \bar{z}_{0})} :e^{ikX}: \ \ (14)$

As Polchinski notes and as we see, the OPE is in agreement with the Ward identity. But we can still carry on a bit further. To conclude this example, recall explicitly to mind the Ward identity and our residues. Switching back to the holomorphic case and evaluating the LHS of (14) notice we find, picking out only the residues,

$\displaystyle \frac{i}{\alpha^{\prime}} : \partial X^{\mu} e^{ikX}: = (\frac{k^{\mu}}{2} + \frac{k^{\mu}}{2}) G = k^{\mu} G \ \ (15)$

So, we have that it must be equal to ${k^{\mu}}$ times the operator ${\mathcal{G}}$ from above. Now, given that ${\mathcal{G} = \mathcal{A}}$, the right-hand side of the Ward identity tells us that,

$\displaystyle k^{\mu} \mathcal{A} = \frac{1}{i \epsilon} \delta \mathcal{A} \ \ (16)$

And, again, from the Ward identity we can see in (15) that with a bit of algebra the variation of the operator must be,

$\displaystyle \delta \mathcal{A} = ik^{\mu}\epsilon \mathcal{A} \ \ (17)$

Where we are assuming the variation is only in one direction. Interestingly, as an aside, what is actually happening are the following transformation properties,

$\displaystyle \mathcal{A} = e^{ikX} \rightarrow e^{ikX + ik^{\mu}\epsilon}$

$\displaystyle X^{\mu} \rightarrow X^{\mu} + \epsilon \ \ (18)$

1.2. Example 2

In the first example we considered a spacetime translation. We can now look to the second example in Polchinski’s textbook, where we want to consider a worldsheet translation, particularly how the ${a}$ of the ${\sigma}$ coordinates transforms as ${\delta \sigma^{a} = \epsilon v^{a}}$. Here ${v^{a}}$ is a constant vector. It follows that from the action for free massless scalars is invariant under this transformation, with the above symmetry clearly understood given ${X}$ is a scalar and how ${\delta \sigma^{a}}$ does not change the measure of integration. And so, just as in the first example, what we want to do is investigate the construction of the conserved current as a result of this worldsheet symmetry transformation and then test the Ward identity.

The first step is to note that because we are dealing with a scalar theory we may write explicitly,

$\displaystyle \sigma^{a} \rightarrow \sigma^{\prime a} = \sigma + \epsilon v^{a} \ \ (19)$

Where, for any worldsheet symmetry transformation, the scalar fields simply transform as follows,

$\displaystyle X^{\prime \mu}(\sigma^{\prime}) = X^{\mu}(\sigma) \ \ (20)$

From which it also follows that,

$\displaystyle X^{\prime \mu}(\sigma + \delta \sigma) = X^{\mu}(\sigma) \implies X^{\prime \mu}(\sigma) = X^{\mu}(\sigma - \delta \sigma) \ \ (21)$

Where we should recognise that in brackets on the left-hand side of the first equality, ${\sigma + \delta \sigma = \sigma^{\prime}}$.

Of course, like the first example, we’re interested in how operators transform. And so we want to consider,

$\displaystyle \delta X^{\mu}(\sigma) = X^{\prime \mu}(\sigma) - X^{\mu}(\sigma) = X^{\prime \mu} (\sigma^{a} - \epsilon v^{a}) - X^{\mu}(\sigma) \ \ (22)$

Expanding and only keep the 1st terms, what we end up with is precisely an expression for how our operators transform,

$\displaystyle \delta X^{\mu}(\sigma) = -\epsilon(\sigma) v^{a}\partial_{a}X^{\mu} \ \ (23)$

Now, what we want to do is check with the Ward identity. So, like before, let’s start by varying the action and then build from there,

$\displaystyle \delta S = \delta [\frac{1}{4\pi \alpha^{\prime}}\int d^2\sigma \partial^{a}X^{\mu}\partial_{a}X_{\mu}]$

$\displaystyle = \frac{1}{2\pi \alpha^{\prime}} \int d^2\sigma \partial^{a}X^{\mu}\partial_{a}\delta X_{\mu} \ \ (24)$

Where ${\delta X_{\mu} = -\epsilon(\sigma)v^{a}\partial_{a}X_{\mu}}$. The implication is as follows. From (24) we can substitute for ${\delta X_{\mu}}$,

$\displaystyle \delta S = \frac{1}{2\pi \alpha^{\prime}} \int d^{2}\sigma \partial^{a}X^{\mu}\partial_{a}(-\epsilon(\sigma)v^{a}\partial_{a}X_{\mu})$

$\displaystyle = -\frac{\epsilon}{2\pi \alpha^{\prime}} \int d^2\sigma \partial^{a}X^{\mu}\partial_{a} v^{b}\partial_{b}X_{\mu} + \partial^{c}X^{\mu}\partial_{c}v^{d}\partial_{d}X_{\mu}$

$\displaystyle = -\frac{\epsilon}{2\pi \alpha^{\prime}} \int d^2\sigma \partial^{a}X^{\mu}\partial_{a} v^{b}\partial_{b}X_{\mu} \ [1] + \partial_{d}(\frac{1}{2}v^{d} \partial^{c}X^{\mu}\partial_{c}X^{\mu}) \ [2] \ \ (25)$

Where, for pedagogical purposes, the first and second integrands have been labelled [1] and [2] respectively. The reason is because it will be useful to recall these pieces separately in order to highlight some necessary computational logical and procedure. Before that, however, we should think of the conserved current. It follows, as we have already learned,

$\displaystyle -\delta S = \frac{i}{2\pi} \int d^2\sigma \sqrt{-g}J^{a}\partial_{a}\epsilon \ \ (26)$

Remember, looking at (2) in a previous entry, we can see clearly that ${J^{a}(\sigma)}$ is the coefficient of ${\partial_{a}\rho (\sigma)}$. In the first example we become more familiar with this fact. And what Polchinski is referencing in the single passing sentence that he provides prior to eqns. (2.3.15a) and (2.3.15b) is that we need to make contact with this formalism. It is convenient to now reassert the ${\rho(\sigma)}$ term,

$\displaystyle = -\frac{\epsilon}{2\pi \alpha^{\prime}} \int d^2\sigma [ (\partial^{a}X^{\mu}\partial_{b} v^{b}X_{\mu}) \partial_{b}(\rho(\sigma)) \ [1] + (\rho(\sigma)) \partial_{c}(\frac{1}{2}v^{c} \partial^{d}X^{\mu}\partial_{d}X^{\mu})] \ [2] \ \ (27)$

Now, let’s look at both pieces of (27). Piece [1] above looks fine and, on inspection, seems quite manageable. Piece [2], on the other hand, is not very nice. In taking one step forward, what we can do is integrate the second piece by parts. This has the benefit that we can eliminate the total derivative that arises and eliminate the surface terms. To save space, the result is given below,

$\displaystyle \delta S = \frac{\epsilon}{2 \pi \alpha'}\int d^2\sigma v^b\partial^a X^{\mu} \partial_b X_{\mu} \partial_a - \partial_b (\frac{1}{2}v^b \partial^a X^{\mu} \partial_a X_\mu)$

$\displaystyle =\frac{\epsilon}{2 \pi \alpha'}\int d^2\sigma [v^b(\partial^a X^\mu \partial_b X_{\mu} -\frac{1}{2}\delta^{a}_{b} \partial_b X^\mu \partial^b X_\mu) \partial_a] \ \ (28)$

How to interpret (28)? Notice something very interesting. We have the stress-energy tensor plus some additional terms outside the small brackets. If we make the appropriate substitution for the stress-energy tensor we therefore obtain,

$\displaystyle \delta S = -\dfrac{\epsilon}{2 \pi}\int d^2\sigma \, (v^c\,T_c^a)\partial_a \ \ (29)$

If we bring the constant epsilon back into the integrand, we have an integral over the worldsheet times a derivative of the parameter of an infinitesimal transformation. Whatever is left can be interpreted as a conserved current. Hence, then, if we go back and inspect (2) in this post we come to establish what Polchinski states in eqn. (2.3.15a). Our indices are slightly different up to this point, but this is merely superficial and when we rearrange things we find,

$\displaystyle J^{a} = iv^{b}T_{b}^{a}$

And then lowering the index on ${J}$,

$\displaystyle J_{a} = iv^{b}T_{ab} \ \ (30)$

This is our conserved current. In certain words, it is natural to anticipate a conserved current on the string worldsheet and also for this current to be related to the stress-energy tensor. Just thinking of the physical picture gives some idea as to why this is a natural expectation. But we are not quite done.

What we want to do, ultimately, is define the stress-energy tensor as an operator with full quantum corrections. But, as we are working in conformal field theory, there is an ambiguity about how we might define it related to normal ordering. Let’s explore this for a moment.

We should think of stringy CFTs by way of how we will define a set of basic operators, and then from this show what is the stress-energy tensor. Moreover, it is a property of the stress-energy tensor and the basic operators we utilise that will give definition to the CFT. In CFT language, it is given that the stress-energy tensor can be written as,

$\displaystyle T_{ab} = \frac{1}{\alpha^{\prime}} : \partial_{a}X^{\mu}\partial_{b}X_{\mu} - \frac{1}{2}\delta_{ab}(\partial X)^2 : \ \ (31)$

This is what Polchinski cites in eqn. (2.3.15b). We can still go a step further and discuss the topic of conformal invariance in relation to this definition. For instance, from the principles of conformal invariance, it remains the case that as discussed much earlier in these notes,

$\displaystyle T_{a}^{a} = 0$

Which is to say, as we should remember, the stress-energy tensor is traceless. This condition of tracelessness tells us how, if we were to go to holomorphic and antiholomorphic coordinates,

$\displaystyle T_{a}^{a} = 0 \rightarrow T_{z\bar{z}} = 0 = T_{\bar{z}z} \ \ (32)$

Where one may recall, also, the non-vanishing parts ${T_{zz}}$ and ${T_{\bar{z}\bar{z}}}$ from an earlier discussion in this collection of notes. It follows that if the stress-energy tensor is, in fact, traceless, we may invoke the conservation of the current such that,

$\displaystyle \nabla^{a}J_{a} = 0 = \nabla^{a} T_{ab} = 0 \ \ (33)$

Which is to say that we have full conservation for the full stress-energy tensor. We can write this in terms of holomorphic and antiholomorphic coordinates as expected,

$\displaystyle \bar{\partial}T_{zb} + \partial T_{\bar{z}b} = 0 \ \ (34)$

This gives us two choices:

$\displaystyle b = z \implies \partial T_{zz} = 0$

$\displaystyle b = \bar{z} \implies \partial T_{\bar{z}\bar{z}} = 0 \ \ (35)$

Where, as it was discussed some time ago, ${T_{zz} = T(z)}$ is a holomorphic function and ${T_{\bar{z}\bar{z}} = \bar{T}(\bar{z})}$ is an antiholomorphic function.

It is perhaps quite obvious at this point that we may also write,

$\displaystyle T(z) = -\frac{1}{\alpha^{\prime}} : \partial X^{\mu}\partial X_{\mu}:$

$\displaystyle \bar{T}(\bar{z}) = -\frac{1}{\alpha^{\prime}} : \bar{\partial} X^{\mu}\bar{\partial} X_{\mu}: \ \ (36)$

Now, returning to our current (30), we can be completely general in our study of the current,

$\displaystyle J_{z} = iv(z)T(z)$

$\displaystyle \bar{J}_{\bar{z}} = i\bar{v(z)}\bar{T}(\bar{z}) \ \ (37)$

If we have conservation of the current, then the above is the same as,

$\displaystyle \nabla_{a}J^{a} = \bar{\partial}J_{z} + \partial J_{\bar{z}} = 0 \ \ (38)$

Which is to say that the new currents are conserved provided ${v(z)}$, previously considered a constant vector, is holomorophic. Additionally, the current is of course associated with symmetries; but what are these symmetries? They are the conformal transformations.

If, in the bigger picture, what we want to do is find ${\delta X}$ due to symmetries ${J_{z} = ivT(z)}$, to proceed recall the Ward identity ${\mathcal{A} = X^{\mu}}$. It follows we need to compute an OPE for the stress-energy tensor with our scalar field (complete computation is given in the Appendix of this chapter, along with other important and useful OPEs),

$\displaystyle :T(z) : :X^{\mu}(z_{0}, \bar{z}_{0}): = -\frac{1}{\alpha^{\prime}} : \partial X\partial X: : X^{\mu}(z_{0}, \bar{z}_{0}) :$

$\displaystyle \sim -(\frac{2}{\alpha^{\prime}}) \cdot (-\frac{\alpha^{\prime}}{2}\partial_{z}\ln \mid z - z_{0}\mid^2) : \partial X(z_{0}) :$

$\displaystyle T X^{\mu} \sim \frac{1}{z - z_{0}}\partial X(z_{0})$

$\displaystyle \bar{T}X^{\mu} \sim \frac{1}{\bar{z} - \bar{z}_{0}}\bar{\partial}X(\bar{z}_{0}) \ \ (39)$

Which is what Polchinski states in eqn. (2.4.6). And now we can use the Ward identity and take the residue of the current with the coefficients of the OPE for the holomorphic and antiholomorphic pieces,

$\displaystyle iv(z_{0}) \partial X(z_{0}) + i \bar{v}(z_{0} \bar{\partial} X(\bar{z}_{0}) = \frac{1}{i\epsilon} \delta X \ \ (40)$

And so what we find is that, for the current we have constructed, we have a symmetry transformation of the following form,

$\displaystyle \delta X = -iv(z_{0})\partial X(z_{0}) - i\bar{v}(z_{0} \bar{\partial}X(\bar{z}_{0}) \ \ (41)$

For ${z_{0} \rightarrow z_{0} + \epsilon v(z_{0})}$. If we drop ${z_{0}}$ and generalise,

$\displaystyle \delta X^{\mu} = -\epsilon v(z)\partial X - \epsilon\bar{v}(z)\bar{\partial}X \ \ (42)$

For ${z \rightarrow z + \epsilon v(z)}$ which is an infinitesimal transformation, where the only constraint is that ${z \rightarrow z^{\prime} = f(z)}$ is holomorphic.

The reason the transformation is so simple,

$\displaystyle \delta X^{\mu} = X^{\prime \mu}(z^{\prime}, \bar{z}^{\prime}) - X^{\mu}(z, \bar{z}) = X^{\mu}(z - \epsilon v, z - \epsilon\bar{v}) - X^{\mu} \ \ (43)$

Where, after Taylor expansion,

$\displaystyle \delta X^{\mu} = - \epsilon v\partial X - \epsilon\bar{v}\bar{\partial}X \ \ (44)$

It is important to point out that ${f(z) = \xi(z)}$ represents a global rescaling (but can also represent a local rescaling). If ${\mid \xi \mid = 1}$ then we have a simple rotation, and in general no scaling.

To conclude, from the very outset of this chapter, we may also recall to mind that in the context of the conformal group we are working in 2-dimensions. When we ask, ‘what is the analogue of this symmetry in higher dimensions?’, the answer is that in higher dimensions we can construct scale invariance as well. Indeed, in D-dimensions, if you have ${y^{\mu} \rightarrow \lambda y^{\mu}}$ you have additional special conformal transformations.

References

Joseph Polchinski. (2005). ‘String Theory: An Introduction to the Bosonic String’, Vol. 1.

Blumenhagen, R. and Plauschinn. (2009). ‘Introduction to Conformal Field Theory’.

Standard
Physics Diary

# Diary: Sick Note and a Minor Research Update

I’ve been sick for a couple of weeks now. It’s that time of year, ‘freshers flu’ abound. At the beginning, when I knew I was coming down with an infection, I made the choice that it was also a good time for a full reset. Often when I am sick I still work on my physics, if capable, or in the very least dabble and then continue to studying new papers. But this time has been different: a complete and total sick break, the meaning of which has also been extended to include a complete and total break from everything in life. That is, no maths problems, no Polchinski textbook questions or random integrals to keep me occupied (ok, I admit, I worked on a few integrals and I am growing increasingly eager to work on some string problems), no Asperger’s appointments or random errands or administration. Just a proper shutdown, slowing life to a halt. Whilst dealing with being ill, I have taken advantage of the time to simply reflect on a busy year or more and to play some Magic (or other games). I also plan to catch up on some films this weekend in addition to the new Swamp Thing series on Netflix.

To be honest, it’s probably the first proper break I’ve had in 24+ months. Before contracting an infection and becoming ill, I was starting to experience mental burnout – the same hard crash and periodic fatigue that is a definite pattern in my life. I could objectively observe – like a narrator – silly errors that I was starting to make and I could see my computation time increasing.

Thankfully, though, I am starting to feel better and I am eager to get back to my studies and to working on a number of projects. For the first month of my MRES, I have spent a large chuck of my time learning the braneworld formalism and picking up some bits in advanced gravity theory that I previously missed. I also spent time starting to think more deeply about string geometry, classical vacua / moduli stabilisation, and to also start digging into the world of non-geometric backgrounds. String geometry has become one of my main research interests, especially non-perturbative effects. M-theory is also of great interest. And in these areas, the question of geometric constraints on string vacua has become an increasingly interesting research question. In truth, there are still a lot of pressing questions and problems in these areas that one day I would like to be able to explore, but it means I first need to rebuild the picture for myself from first principles which takes time. This is how my brain best functions. So that likely means months of pure string geometry, learning M-theory, and studying lots and lots of compactifications.

Meanwhile, in addition to these research activities, for the second month of my MRes I imagine more time will be spent on an ongoing braneworld project alongside my professor and a PhD colleague, Cesc. It has been a lot to cram in a short amount of time, but I am very much looking forward to exploring some stringy questions in this area as well. I’ve also been learning more about black strings and an entirely new, wacky world of physics that includes black shells and black holes as bubble nucleation sites.

In the meantime, thanks for reading.

Standard
Physics Diary

# String Conferences for the 2019/20 Academic Year

I’ve had to narrow my list of string conferences that I would like to attend during the 2019/20 academic year. In the best case, it is likely this year I will only be able to attend one more in person. So hopefully most, if not all, of the following conferences will be live streamed or recorded.

With the theme of my research this year, I’ve prioritised my list of conferences to be mainly on the topic of string geometry. That said, the Swampland conference in August 2020 organised by Eran Palti, Daniel Kläwer, Irene Valenzuela, and Timo Weigand is also one I have highlighted.

Here’s my current list along with links (where available), in order of date,

‘Geometry and Duality’ (2-6 Dec 2019) at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics in (Potsdam, Germany).

‘Supergeometry, Supersymmetry, and Quantisation’ (16-19 Dec 2019) at The University of Luxembourg (Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg).

‘Strings and Geometry’ (28 April – 12 May 2020) at Utrecht University (Utrecht, The Netherlands).

‘Strings 2020’ (29 June – 03 July 2020) at the University of Cape Town (Cape Town, South Africa).

‘Eurostrings 2020’ (24 – 28 August) at the University of Oxford (Oxford, England).

‘Mathematical Foundations of the Swampland’ (17 August – 4 Sept 2020) at the Mainz Institute for Theoretical Physics, Johannes Gutenberg University (Mainz, Germany). This is the Swampland conference being organised by Eran Palti alongside Daniel Kläwer, Irene Valenzuela, and Timo Weigand.

I may add or subtract from this list over the coming weeks, depending on ongoing research commitments and a number of other variables. As things stand, it looks to be an exciting year.

Standard
Stringy Things

# Notes on the Swampland (4): The Distance Conjecture for Arbitrary Calabi-Yau Manifolds, the Emergence Proposal, and the de Sitter Conjecture

The following collection of notes is based on a series of lectures that I attended by Eran Palti at SiftS 2019 at Universidad Autonoma de Madrid. The theme of the lecture series was ‘String Theory and the Swampland’. Palti’s five lectures were supported by his most recent and impressive 200 page review paper on the Swampland, which includes over 600 references [arXiv: 1903.06239 [hep-th]]. The reader is directed to this paper in addition to supplementary references that I also provide at the end of each set of notes.

In the following entry, the notes presented follow the fourth and fifth lectures of Palti’s series.

1. Introduction

In this final entry, we approach the conclusion of this collection of notes by focusing on the fourth and fifth of Palti’s lectures. Due to lack of space, we will not cover every topic in lectures four and five. Instead, we shall focus our energy on paying particular attention and detail to one of the most important and interesting subjects of study presented by Palti (from lecture four): namely, the study of the Distance Conjecture in the context of arbitrary Calabi-Yau (CY) manifolds. Then we will conclude these notes by briefly thinking about a few choice cosmological implications of the Swampland (the topic of Palti’s fifth lecture), particularly the de Sitter conjecture in the context of Type IIA string theory on CY with flux and in the context of 11-dimensional supergravity.

But before all this, we spend a short amount of time reflecting on the ‘Emergence Proposal’ (a concept introduced at the end of lecture four) and on some timely issues facing the Swampland programme.

2. A House of Cards? Emergence and the Swampland

As a summary review, let us quickly recall what we have so far emphasised in this series of notes. One of the featured viewpoints to be highlighted in Palti’s lectures is the observation that, among the growing list of Swampland Conjectures, there is ample reason to suggest that the Distance Conjecture and the Weak Gravity Conjecture are among two of the most established in terms of evidence. That is to say, short of complete and formal proof, the amount of evidence supporting these two conjectures in particular is very solid. We have already spent quite a bit of time exploring a number of tests and we have already begun to develop a deeper understanding for why the DC and the WGC are supported by significant evidence.

This emphasis on mathematical testability is important. In general, it does not seem too egregious to admit that the Swampland programme as a while has being experiencing both internal and external controversy. This controversy would seem as much scientific as philosophical. For example, consider the most recent Swampland conference (also held at IFT) that followed a couple months after the summer school from which these notes were originally written. One description of the situation at the September conference is this: the list of conjectures has experienced unrelenting growth but at the result of questionable rigour. In a moment of hyperbole issued for exaggerating effect, we might say that the programme itself is developing analogously as an infinite tower of conjectures. It is a well-established concern among portions of the Swampland research community that we are not proving/disproving conjectures faster than the rate in which new conjectures are being introduced. And from the perspective of this humble student, the situation has reached a point where proof and disproof are imperative.

In listening to and monitoring debates about the programme, I have come to be of the mind that we should proceed with particular caution. The caution is this: there is a genuine concern growing about a lack of mathematical rigour, which would seem verified by the observation that the list of conjectures is growing at a much faster rate than formal proof/disproof. This concern gains further urgency when considering the surrounding sociology, where calls for systematic evidence have been matched with what seems a more generally developing narrative against String Theory / M-theory writ large. It is understandable that the Swampland programme is compelled to react with a mission to make predictions and provide such evidence. But these sorts of commitments may still be premature. Predictions are key, but if we do not even know the theory to be accurate, any predictive claims or evidence would seem to put not just the Swampland but the entire reputation of String Theory at risk. In other words, it would seem reckless to begin contemplating demands for evidence without exhaustive rigour and confirmation of the theory at hand. In the very least, and in the best possible scenario, we have a theory not completely understood. But in either case, to then make predictions on these grounds – on a tower of conjectures, which, at the end of the day could very well be a house of cards – is risky.

But perhaps it is in this context that the moral tone of Palti’s lecture series earlier in the summer (prior to the Swampland conference in September) might be seen to be profoundly insightful and of timely inclination. In Palti’s fourth lecture, for example, the message becomes much more pronounced – that we may take the view that the DC and the WGC are in fact two fundamental pillars of the Swampland. Let me state this slightly differently. In reflecting on Palti’s lectures, to take the view that the entire programme depends on the DC and the WGC, and to map the relation of all the other conjectures from this foundation, it provides clarified view on a programme of proof/disproof.

Furthermore, if what we have done so far is focused on studying and reviewing examples of why the DC and the WGC can be trusted – why, short of complete formal proof – the evidence for these two conjectures is both substantial and inescapable, what we are coming to learn is precisely why both the DC and the WGC are an example of two first-class constraints. Taking this view has consequences. If the DC and the WGC are first-class constraints, it follows that if one understands these two conjectures they may then go on to understand all of the other conjectures. If we can disprove any number of the second-class conjectures, the Swampland programme would not collapse. If, on other hand, we should disprove the DC or the WGC, it is likely the entire programme collapses in on itself. The picture is illustrated quite explicitly in the above image.

The above picture describes what is called the ‘Emergence Proposal’ [1], based, in a sense, on the idea that Swampland Conjectures are consequences of the emergent nature of dynamic fields in quantum gravity. In lecture 4, we learned that if a coherent picture is emerging that outlines the relations between the growing conjectural assertions of the Swampland, a related internal programme of proof/disproof may also most effectively work from the bottom-up. But with the Emergence Proposal (as I currently understand it), not only is there the idea of first and second-class constraints – an idea for how we may perhaps pursue a foundational line of enquiry – another deep idea also comes to the fore: namely, the Swampland constraints are rooted in some underlying microscopic physics to be discovered. We don’t know what defines this microscopic physics, if it exists at all. That is a subject for another time. But we know, currently placed just above it in an overall web of constraints, the DC and the WGC may still offer some direct insight.

On that end, we now turn our attention to one of the deepest tests yet of the DC, beginning with a brief discussion of the refined version of the conjecture.

3. The Distance Conjecture (Refined)

We begin with the following message in mind: already we have seen several tests of the WGC and the DC. Each time, we have focused on increasing the complexity of the test and each time we have found strong evidence that both the WGC and the DC are deeply general. What we want to do now is proceed to review more tests of the DC, this time for even more complex geometry: namely, arbitrary Calabi-Yau manifolds.

Formally, the DC can be understood as follows [2]. As Palti put it in lecture four, consider how if we have a scalar field that is canonically normalised then we have already come to expect that there should be an infinite tower of states that goes something like,

$\displaystyle (\partial \phi)^{2}, \ m \sim e^{- \alpha \phi} \ \ (1)$

Indeed, we are starting to understand that the behaviour in (1) would seem a general property of string theory. But we might ask, following Palti, what if the scalar is not canonically normalised? Consider, for instance, the scenario where we have some complicated function ${f (\phi)}$ in front of the kinetic term,

$\displaystyle f(\phi) (\partial \phi)^{2} \ \ (2)$

Moreover, let us consider for a moment a theory with a moduli space, ${\mathcal{M}}$ (remember: a moduli space is a space parameterised by the value of some scalar fields). We will make it so ${\mathcal{M}}$ is parameterised by ${\phi^{i}}$, and we should note that ${\phi^{i}}$ has no potential (typically, this implies that there should be some supersymmetry in the theory). Now, take any point ${P \in \mathcal{M}}$, where a point in Moduli space is given by the expectation value for the scalar fields ${\phi^{i}}$. We define another point ${Q \in \mathcal{M}}$ such that, in this set-up, the geodesic proper distance (i.e., the distance is equivalent to the vacuum expectation value in field space) between ${P}$ and ${Q}$ may be denoted as ${d(P, D)}$ (note: we measure the distance using the field space metric in front of the kinetic terms). Crucially, the first statement of the DC says this geodesic distance is infinite, which is to say the scalar field obtains an infinite vacuum expectation value. The second statement describes the behaviour at this infinity. That is to say, the second state describes that there exists an infinite tower of states with mass scale $m$, such that $m(Q) \sim m(P)e^{-\alpha d(P,Q) / M_{P}}$ as $d(P,Q) \rightarrow \infty$ and where $\alpha \sim \mathcal{O}(1)$.

This is the key idea. Given two points of great distance in field space – at least greater than the Planck scale – we obtain an infinite tower of exponentially light states.

We have of course already started to become familiar with this statement. The point that ought to be highlighted here, however, is that if we have some basic canonically normalised scalar field ${(\partial \phi)^{2}}$, then all that we get is the familiar ${m \sim e^{-\alpha \phi}}$. In more complicated situations, such as when the scalar field is not canonically normalised, the refined DC tells us that we can apply it also to such completely general situations.

In these notes, we will not explore any further an example of the trivial canonical case. Instead, having discussed is the refined distance conjecture [1], what we want do is review whether it holds in the case of arbitrary complex extended structures.

4. Type IIB on Calabi-Yau C3-fold

4.1. Supergravity Set-up

In this example, we invoke Type IIB string theory on a Calabi-Yau C3-fold (i.e., we have a 6-dimensional CY space). In the construction we are about to study, the geometry we will be working with is about as complicated as it gets, so we start with some basics.

We should first note that Type IIB string theory on CY gives ${\mathcal{N} = 2}$ supergravity (SUGRA) in 4-dimensions. Due to limited space, we are not going to establish the supergravity formalism in these notes. The reader is instead directed to ref. [1, 3-5] for an introduction, where, for these notes, we are of course following Palti in ref. [1] quite strictly. Another very important paper, which we will cover in some depth is ref. [6] on infinite distances in field space. In fact, majority of what follows is based on this paper.

Meanwhile, to continue establishing the basics, the general supergravity set-up is this: we have ${n_{V}}$ vector multiplets with bosonic content of a complex scalar field. Similar in a sense to past discussion about the presence of scalar fields with regards to the radius of the circle, in the present case the scalar fields we are interested in studying are complex structure moduli, ${t^{i}}$, where ${i = 1, ..., n_{V}}$. These complex structure moduli parameterise the geometry of the CY.

We also have gauge fields, ${A^{i}}$. These gauge fields are quite interesting, as we will elaborate. For now, note that there is a gravity multiplet which contains a (bosonic fields) graviton and graviphoton, ${A^{0}}$. All of the gauge fields can be combined such that ${I = \{0, i \}}$ for ${A^{I}}$.

The number of fields, ${t^{i}}$ and ${A^{I}}$, is counted by the number of 3-cycles in the CY, which, for a typical CY, is ${\sim \mathcal{O}(100)}$. This means that for the field space in the effective field theory we find a space with ${\sim 100}$ complex dimensions (and so we have a 200 dimensional field space in total).

Based on previous discussions, one might wonder whether there are charged states under the gauge field ${A^{I}}$. The answer is that there are charged states, they are BPS states which are ${D3-branes}$ wrapping 3-cycles in the CY. Schematically, the moduli describe the size of the 3-cycle and then they describe the mass of the D3-branes that are wrapping the 3-cycles, behaving like particles in the external dimensions.

Generally, in this set-up, we find an action of the form,

$\displaystyle S_{\mathcal{N} = 2} = \int d^{4}x \sqrt{-g} [\frac{R}{2} - g_{ij} \partial_{\mu} t^{i} \partial^{\mu} \bar{t}^{j} -h_{\sigma \lambda} \partial_{\mu} l^{\sigma} \partial^{\mu} l^{\lambda} + \mathcal{I}_{IJ}\mathcal{F}^{I}_{\mu \nu}\mathcal{F}^{J, \mu \nu} + \mathcal{R}_{IJ}\mathcal{F}^{I}_{\mu \nu} (\star \mathcal{F})^{J, \mu \nu}] \ \ (3)$

The structure of which can be read off beginning with metrics, ${g_{ij}}$ and ${h_{\sigma \lambda}}$. In totality, the moduli space is split into vector multiplets and hypermultiplets, ${\mathcal{M} = \mathcal{M}_{V} \times \mathcal{M}_{H}}$. And so, as one would expect even notationally, these two metrics describe two separate manifolds. We are going to focus on the vector multiplets which span a special Kähler manifold, from which we can generalise for the hypermultiplets on the quaternionic Kähler manifold. What is important to note is the periodicity ${\{X^{I}, F_{I} \}}$ for the multiplet field space, in which we are dealing with holomorphic functions of ${t^{i}}$.

Notice also the gauge kinetic functions, ${\mathcal{R}}$ and ${\mathcal{I}}$. These both contain real and imaginary parts of a complex matrix.

4.2. Charge Vector and Kähler Potential

It was mentioned that we have D3-branes wrapping 3-cycles. When a certain D3-brane wraps the 3-cycles in the CY, this is labelled by a charge vector ${q \in \mathbb{Z}}$ (of ${\mathcal{O}(100)}$). This charge vector is in fact a 100-dimensional vector, where each entry is some holomorphic function of the 100’s of scalar fields in our theory. The basic idea, to give some more intuition, is that once we know the charge vector we know the mass of the BPS state, which, again, are the charged states under the gauge fields. Study (4) below,

$\displaystyle m(\underline{q}) = \mid z(\underline{q}) \mid = \mid \frac{\underline{q \eta \underline{\prod}}(t)}{[i \underline{\prod}^{T}(t) \eta \bar{\prod}(t)]^{1/2}} \mid \ \ (4)$

Where ${\prod}$ is the period vector. Notice that in the denominator we have complex conjugation as the object ${\underline{\prod}^{T}(t)}$ must be real. Furthermore, all of the geometry of the CY is captured in the period vector ${\underline{\prod}(t)}$. One can see that it is a function of ${t^{i}}$. This is because it is a 100-dimensional vector that is an arbitrary function of the complex structure moduli. We should also highlight, for pedagogical purposes, that the expressions for ${\eta}$ and ${\prod}$ are a local choice of basis on the moduli space. Without going into all of the details, the period vector ${\prod}$ can be defined on a local coordinate basis such that,

$\displaystyle \prod = \begin{bmatrix} X^{0} \\ x^{i} \\ F_{j} \\ F_{0} \\ \end{bmatrix} (5)$

So that the electric index increases down the vector and the magnetic index increases from the bottom-up. The ${eta}$ term in (4) is the natural symplectic form of this multiplet vector space, and so we may indeed construct the appropriate symplectic inner products.

It is not difficult to understand that the field space that we are working with is very complicated. In [6], the metric is given by the derivative of the Kähler potential (also note, much of the same notation and general construction is in this paper, which as with other points discussed can also read in ref. [1]),

$\displaystyle g_{t^{i} \bar{t}^{j}} = \partial_{t^{i}} \partial_{\bar{t}^{j}} K \ \ (6)$

Where the ${K}$ is the Kähler potential, ${K = -log [i \prod^{T} \eta \bar{\prod}]}$. In other words, we have the log of the period vector. This potential is actually very interesting, and one can derive it by considering in general a Kähler potential for some CY manifold, ${Y_{D}}$, of complex dimension ${D}$ where the complex structure moduli is given by a ${h^{D-1, 1} (Y_{D})}$-dimensional Kähler manifold. The potential is then generally written as $K = -log [-i^{D} \int_{Y_{D}} \omega \wedge \bar{\omega}]$ in which one finds metric components of the form above. Once one finds the appropriate integral basis, the potential above is found.

4.3. Studying the Field Space

The discussion in this section is based almost entirely on [6], as well as parts of Palti’s summary in lecture 4 and his review in [1]. Additionally, we will be working with a number of very powerful mathematical theorems offered by Wilfried Schmid [7] building on Deligne’s work [8] in Hodge theory. (Please note, while we will not explore a detailed study / re-derivation of some of the theorems found in [7], I am very interested in this work and also in [6] which leverages Schmid’s nilpotent orbit theorem, so I will offer a detailed review in a future post).

In a schematic way, what we want to do is consider some point of infinite distance on this field space. Following Palti in his lecture, we shall label this point by the parameter ${t}$ going to ${+i \infty}$. We now invoke the theorem that tells us that for such a point the period vector has a monodromy around it. In other words, if we send the real part of ${t}$ to infinity, ${\text{Re} t \rightarrow \text{Re} t + 1}$, which, in a sense, is like encircling the point at infinity, we have a transformation of the period vector. In fact, we see that the period vector transforms by the action of a monodromy matrix, $\prod (t) \rightarrow T_{i} \prod(t)$. Then, due to properties studied in [6], we see that each ${T_{i}}$ can be decomposed and, with the monodromy matrix massaged in a way that it only gives its infinite order part, we can define the log of this ${T_{i}}$ in the form of a matrix equation,

$\displaystyle N_{i} = \log T^{u}_{i} = \sum_{k = 1}^{\infty} (-1)^{k + 1} \frac{1}{k} (T^{(u)}_{i} - Id)^{k} = \frac{1}{m_{i}} \log T^{mi}_{i} \ \ (7)$

From this, we invoke the nilpotent orbit theorem [7]. With space limited the essentially idea may be summarised in the result that ${N}$ is nilpotent. This means that if we take a high enough power we will get zero, ${N^{n+1} = 0, \ n \leq 3}$. Moreover, remember that we have sent ${t}$ an infinite distance, and as things are currently constructed we need to know what this point looks like. What Schmid’s theorem in ref. [7] tells us is precisely what the period vector looks like around any point at infinite distance. In fact, it says that the period vector must look like,

$\displaystyle \prod (t) = \exp [t N](a_{0} (S) + \mathcal{O}(E^{2\pi i t})) \ \ (8)$

What is this telling us exactly? It says that we have a parameter ${t}$, and as ${t \rightarrow i \infty}$ we get exponentially small corrections. In other words, because ${N}$ is nilpotent we see in (8) that we get some polynomial in ${t}$. The vector ${a_{0}}$ depends on the other moduli, but not ${t}$, and as the exponential term may be neglected we see that we can know the form of the period vector around any point.

There is another theorem in [7], as Palti cites in his lecture, which, using again the nilpotent theorem, tells us if this point is indeed an infinite distance then it must be the matrix ${[t N]}$ does not annihilate the vector ${a_{0} (S)}$. And so what we have, to be terse, is the following,

$\displaystyle \text{Infinite distance} \longleftrightarrow N^{d + 1} a_{0} \neq 0, \ d > 0 \ \ (9)$

Now, all we need to do is take the period vector and this form ${[t N]}$ and plug it into the formulae for the mass of the BPS states and for the metric on the moduli space. What we find is that we must have some local expression near any infinite locus in the moduli space. Schematically, from section 3.2 in ref. [6] we may write,

$\displaystyle g_{t \bar{t}} = \partial_{t} \partial_{\bar{t}} K = \frac{1}{4} \frac{d}{\text{Im} t^{2}} \ \ (10)$

Where we have dropped the subleading terms. With the universal leading term only depending on degree ${d}$, quadratic ${1 / \text{Im} t}$ it is found that the proper field distance is logarithmic when we send ${t}$ to infinity,

$\displaystyle d_{\gamma}(P, Q) = \int_{Q}^{P} \sqrt{g_{t \bar{t}}} \mid dt \mid \sim \frac{\sqrt{d}}{2} \log (\text{Im} t) \ \ (11)$

From which it is found that, in the case of a CY compactification that preserves ${\mathcal{N} = 2}$ supersymmetry the BPS states become massless at the singularity point. More technically, in the paper these singular points have to do with what the author’s study as infinite quotient monodromy orbits. But for our purposes we note in particular for the mass,

$\displaystyle M_{q} \sim \frac{\sum_{j}\frac{1}{j!}(\text{Im} t)^{j} S_{j}(q, a_{0})}{(2^{d} / d!)^{1/2} (\text{Im} t)^{d/2}} \ \ (12)$

In other words, as Palti motivates it, we see that the D3-branes become massless as the imaginary part goes to infinity. The behaviour of the mass is argued to be universal for any massless BPS states. Furthermore, what is observed is the presence of a power law in ${t}$ whilst the proper distance is logarithmic in ${t}$. If we consider some path, ${\gamma}$, as implied in (11), the effective theory at two points (P, Q) in the moduli space approach singularity. The mass of the BPS states decreases exponentially fast in the proper distance. And so, in a schematic way in these notes, we may describe this in the form of ${\Delta \phi \sim \log t}$ and $M \sim \frac{1}{t^{\alpha}} \sim e^{-\alpha \Delta \phi}$, which is just the Distance Conjecture and the Weak Gravity Conjecture at work.

We have of course been crude in our description, and there is a subtlety about the state not necessarily being confirmed in the theory, with the need remaining that one must show the BPS states being in the spectrum. Perhaps a detailed individual post would be beneficial in the future. For now, we can say that in [6] the case is shown for when ${d = 3}$. For our current purposes, the result is notable it shows that the DC and WGC hold for any CY compactification for Type IIB string theory. And this result should not in any way be understated. Altgough we are dealing with a very complicated 100-dimensional field space, the fact the it can be proven mathematically that both of these first-class Swampland conjectures hold for any CY compactification – and that very powerful mathematical theorems tell us this is necessarily true – we are driven directly toward the suggestion of some deeply general physics.

5. de Sitter Conjecture

5.1. Introduction

To conclude this series of notes, and to celebrate what has been a fairly lengthy and detailed engagement with Palti’s lectures at IFT this past summer, we turn our attention to a brief discussion on some of the cosmological implications of the Swampland. We will not discuss things like tensors modes in inflation or other topics covered in the lectures, which can be easily reviewed in [1]. Instead, we begin with a brief review of the de Sitter Conjecture, which states that the gradient of the potential is bounded,

$\displaystyle \mid \nabla V \mid \geq \frac{c}{M_{P}} V \ \ (13)$

In other words, the scalar potential of the theory must satisfy (13) or the refined version below,

$\displaystyle \text{min} (\nabla_{i} \nabla_{j} V) \leq - \frac{c^{\prime}}{M_{P}^{2}}V \ \ (14)$

Where this second condition is based on or motivated by entropy arguments. There are a number of connections between the de Sitter conjectures and ongoing experiments, including dark energy constraints and constraints from inflation. Interaction with experimental observation is quite active here, as Palti summarises. What we shall focus on is what motivates the de Sitter conjecture from string theory.

5.2. Evidence of the de Sitter Conjecture – Type IIA on CY with Flux

What follows is based on a simplified version of the more general study in ref. [8], where flux compactifications of Type IIA string theory are considered and the author’s study the classical stabilisation of geometric moduli. The main idea that we consider in general is that we want to switch on the fluxes for the background CY and then we study them from the perspective of the 4-dimensional effective theory. That is to say, we study the potential from the fluxes in the 4-dimensional theory. In the referenced study there are two fields in the low-energy effective theory. More precisely, there are two moduli fields that parameterise the geometry of the CY, $\rho = (vol)^{1/3}$, which is the volume of the CY and another field, $\tau = e^{-\phi} (vol)^{1/2}$, which is the string coupling times the volume of the CY. As a result of the flux being switched on, these two fields will have some potential.

Now let us consider the canonically normalised fields,

$\displaystyle \hat{\rho} = \sqrt{\frac{3}{2}} M_{P} \ln e \ \ (15)$

$\displaystyle \hat{\tau} = \sqrt{2} M_{P} \ln \tau \ \ (16)$

As these fields are canonically normalised, we may write the following Lagrangian in the Einstein frame,

$\displaystyle \mathcal{L} = \frac{M_{P}^{2}}{2} R - \frac{1}{2} (\partial \hat{\rho})^{2} - \frac{1}{2} (\partial \hat{\tau}) + ... V(\rho, \tau) \ \ (17)$

Now, the featured point here is that the potential is of course quite complicated. We can include any number of things to generate the potential – for example, we can turn off and on certain RR-fluxes or a combination of fluxes. What is interesting is that, in playing with different scenarios, a number of general properties are found. For instance, consider the case of turning on only certain RR-fluxes, where we have an expectation value for the p-form field strength, and also the H-flux which is the field strength of the NS sector,

$\displaystyle \text{RR-flux:} \ V_{p} \sim \rho^{3 - p} \tau^{-4} \ \ (18)$

$\displaystyle \text{H-flux:} \ V_{3} \sim \rho^{-3} \tau^{-2} \ \ (19)$

And with these contributions, we can also have in this case D6-branes and 06-branes that contribute to the potential,

$\displaystyle V_{D6} \sim \tau^{-3} \sim V_{06} \ \ (20)$

It turns out that, completely generally (regardless of the fluxes we switch on or off, their combination, and the branes we choose), the potential always takes the form,

$\displaystyle V = \frac{A_{3} (\phi^{i})}{\rho^{3} \tau^{2}} + \sum_{p} \frac{A_{p} (\phi^{i})}{\rho^{3 - p} \tau^{4}} + \frac{A_{}}{\tau^{3}} \ \ (21)$

Where in the first two terms in the equality we have in the numerator some function of the other fields included in our theory over the contribution from the H-flux and RR-flux, respectively. In the last term, there is a contribution from localised sources in the numerator over the brane contribution. This is the most general form the potential can take, even when we consider the inclusion of hundreds of other fields.

Inspecting the general form of the potential (21), we may consider the following combination of derivatives,

$\displaystyle -\rho \frac{\partial V}{\partial \rho} - 3\tau \frac{\partial V}{\partial \tau} \ \ (22)$

It turns out that, in fact,

$\displaystyle -\rho \frac{\partial V}{\partial \rho} - 3\tau \frac{\partial V}{\partial \tau} = 9V + \sum_{p} pVp \ \ (23)$

Where ${pVp}$ are positive components of the potential and so the following statement is made that, ${9V + \sum_{p} pVp \geq 9V}$. But what does this mean? Well, if we write this in terms of the canonically normalised fields,

$\displaystyle M_{P} \mid \sqrt{\frac{3}{2}} \frac{\partial V}{\partial \hat{p}} + 3\sqrt{2} \frac{\partial V}{\partial \hat{\tau}} \mid \ \geq 9V \ \ (24)$

We notice something striking. If, moreover, we consider the gradient of the potential as it also pertains to the statement made in the de Sitter Conjecture, notice that after some work we can go from a completely general statement to the below,

$\displaystyle M_{P} \mid \nabla V \mid \geq M_{P} \mid \frac{\partial V}{\partial \hat{p}} +\frac{\partial V}{\partial \hat{\tau}} \mid \geq \frac{27}{13} V, \ \ \nabla V > 0 \ \ (25)$

Where we see that the de Sitter Conjecture has been satisfied. As it is a completely general result for any choice of fluxes and any choice of branes for the given compactification, this result is quite striking. In other words, regardless of the complexity of the potential, there is also a lower bound to it.

6. 11-dimensional Supergravity

But what about other scenarios? Let us consider one last example, namely 11-dimensional supergravity and quickly think about what sort of potentials may be generated.

We start by noting the Maldecena-Nunez no-go theorem, which tells us that there is no de Sitter vacua in compactifications of 11-dimensional SUGRA down to any dimension. Moreover, it is shown in [10] that for 11-dimensional SUGRA on a smooth manifold compactified down to d-dimensions there is once again a lower bound which may be written as follows,

$\displaystyle \frac{\mid \nabla \mid}{V} \geq \frac{6}{\sqrt{(d-2)(11-d)}} \ \ (26)$

This is consistent with the de Sitter conjecture. But there are caveats, such as when orientifolds are present, as once again summarised [1]. The main point, with (13), (14), and (26) in mind, is that it is very difficult, if not somewhat extraordinary, to evade these constraints. The statement here is not that it is impossible, but that it is very difficult. Most notably, one is required to use stringy ingredients. For instance to violate these constraints you can include,

* Orientifolds (without D-branes and so where charges cannot be cancelled locally) – i.e., naked’.

* Higher derivative corrections

* Type IIA with orientifolds / something not CY

* Quantum corrections – i.e., quantum vacuum (large, like KKLT)

But these all imply a level of great difficulty, pertaining to the use of stringy ingredients of which we do not yet have a great understanding. So this is one problem, which already requires great consideration. But there is another, which refers to the Dine-Seiberg problem [11], and when combined with the first means one has to work doubly hard. The basic idea with the latter is that the source of the potential vanishes when ${g_{s} \rightarrow 0}$. Moreover, it says in the weakly coupled regime there is a non-interacting theory, and so any fluxes etc. vanish. This is a very generic statement; it applies to any point in the Hilbert space where many possible light tower of states may dominate. Consider, for example, a potential subject to the above statement regarding the string coupling in some expansion,

$\displaystyle V \sim g_{s}^{n} + \sum_{k=1}^{\infty} g_{s}^{n+k}C_{k}$

Now, imagine the expansion is controlled. To leading order,

$\displaystyle V \sim g_{s}^{n} \sim e^{-n\phi} + \text{small corrections} \ \ (27)$

With only small corrections in the well controlled limit such that ${g_{s} << 1}$. If the potential looks like ${e^{-n\phi}}$ then one can quickly work out,

$\displaystyle \mid \partial_{\phi} V \mid \sim nV \ \ (28)$

Which satisfies the conjecture. But as Palti points out, one can always fight this with coefficients, say, for instance, with some potential,

$\displaystyle V = Ag_{s} + B g_{s}^{2} + cg_{s}^{2} + ..., \ \ g_{s} << 1 \ \ (29)$

Which is what people do when performing flux compactifications. As we know, we can always play with the fluxes and other things which corresponds in the above expansion to playing with the coefficients. So we can consider A and B and chose that ${\frac{B}{A} > \frac{1}{g_{s}}}$ for which it is possible to then have these fields in minimum balance against each other. But then what of the C coefficient? One must ensure that this doesn’t takeover, so we could say ${c \sim B}$. But what the Dine-Seiberg argument says that if ${A \sim B \sim C \sim O(1)}$ then we will never find the minimum to the potential, because ${Ag_{s}}$ must be the leading term and we end up with a runaway direction in the field space. That is why for flux compactifications a general approach is to balance the coefficients by playing with the fluxes so that we can get a minimum for the potential.

We can see clearly that the situation is one where we have to overcome both problems, the no-go and the Dine-Seiberg problem, in order to show a de Sitter vacuum in string theory. One interpretation is that both the Maldecena-Nunez no-go theorem and the Dine-Sieberg problem motivates the de Sitter conjecture: i.e., string theory does not foster or does not like de Sitter vacua. But another, perfectly legitimate interpretation is that all that these two accounts are saying is that we just have to work very hard to obtain a de Sitter vacuum in string theory. For the no-go theorem, for example, to evade it requires working with stringy ingredients that we do not yet have much understanding of – such as working with naked orientifolds or in the case of higher derivative corrections. And so maybe the reality of the situation is not best described by the de Sitter Conjecture but instead motivates the need for even deeper thinking in string theory. In time, which of these interpretations is correct will likely clarify.

References

[1] E. Palti, The Swampland: Introduction and Review’, [arXiv:1903.06239v3[hep-th]].

[2] H. Ooguri and C. Vafa, On the Geometry of the String Landscape and the Swampland, Nucl. Phys. B766 (2007) 21–33, [hep-th/0605264 [hep-th]].

[3] A. Ceresole, R. D’Auria, and S. Ferrara, The Symplectic structure of N=2 supergravity and its central extension, Nucl. Phys. Proc. Suppl. 46 (1996) 67–74, [hep-th/9509160 [hep-th]].

[4] L. Andrianopoli, M. Bertolini, A. Ceresole, R. D’Auria, S. Ferrara, P. Fre, and T. Magri, N=2 supergravity and N=2 superYang-Mills theory on general scalar manifolds: Symplectic covariance, gaugings and the momentum map, J. Geom. Phys. 23 (1997) 111–189, [hep-th/9605032 [hep-th]].

[5] J. Polchinski, ‘String Theory: Superstring Theory and Beyond’, Vol. 2. (2005).

[6] T. W. Grimm, E. Palti, and I. Valenzuela, ‘Infinite Distances in Field Space and Massless Towers of States’, JHEP 08 (2018) 143, [arXiv:1802.08264 [hep-th]].

[7] W. Schmid, ‘Variation of Hodge structure: the singularities of the period mapping’, Invent.
Math. , 22:211–319, 1973.

[8] P. Deligne, Theorie de Hodge: III, Publications Mathematiques de l’IHES´ 44 (1974) 5–77.

[9] O. DeWolfe, A. Giryavets, S. Kachru, and W. Taylor, ‘Type IIA moduli stabilization’, JHEP 07 (2005) 066, [hep-th/0505160 [hep-th]].

[10] J. M. Maldacena and C. Nunez, ‘Supergravity description of field theories on curved manifolds and a no go theorem’, Int. J. Mod. Phys. A16 (2001) 822–855, [hep-th/0007018 [hep-th]].

[11] M. Dine and N. Seiberg, ‘Is the Superstring Weakly Coupled?’, Phys. Lett. 162B (1985) 299–302.

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Stringy Things

# Notes on String Theory: Conformal Field Theory – Ward Identities and Noether’s Theorem

Introduction

We now turn our attention to an introduction to Ward identities, which extends the ideas of Noether’s theorem in quantum field theory. Polchinski notes (p.41), A continuous symmetry in field theory implies the existence of a conserved current (Noether’s theorem) and also Ward identities, which constrain the operator products of the current’.

In this post we want to derive a particular form of the Ward identity, coinciding with Section 2.3 in Polchinski’s textbook. And we shall proceed with the following discussion by emphasising again the perspective we have been building for some time, which goes all the way back to the definition of local operators. Moreover, Ward identities are in fact operator equations generally satisfied by the correlation functions, which, of course, are tied to the symmetry of the theory. So we take this as a starting point. As Polchinski comments, symmetries of the string worldsheet play a very important role in string theory. A large part of our study here is to consider some general field theory and derive similarly general consequences of symmetry in that field theory, extracting what we may learn as a result. It turns out that what we learn is how, among other things, we may derive Ward identities through the functional integral of the correlation functions, utilising the method of a change of variables.

1. Ward Identities and Noether Currents

We start by taking the path integral. Now, suppose we have a general field theory. For an arbitrary infinitesimal transformation of the form ${\phi_{\alpha}^{\prime}(\sigma) = \phi_{\alpha}(\sigma) + \epsilon \cdot \delta\phi_{a}(\sigma)}$, where ${\epsilon}$ is the infinitesimal parameter,

$\displaystyle \int [d\phi^{\prime}]e^{-S[\phi^{\prime}]} = \int [d\phi]e^{-S[\phi]} \ \ (1)$

What we have done is considered the symmetry ${\phi_{\alpha}^{\prime}(\sigma) = \phi_{\alpha}(\sigma) + \epsilon \cdot \delta\phi_{a}(\sigma)}$ of our general field theory and found that both the measure and the action are left invariant (1). They are invariant because what we have is in fact an exact or continuous symmetry of our field theory. A continuous symmetry implies the existence of a conserved current, which, of course, infers Noether’s Theorem and also Ward identities. So, from this basic premise, we want to consider another transformation of the form ${\phi_{a} \rightarrow \phi_{a}^{\prime}(\sigma) = \phi_{a}(\sigma) +\rho(\sigma)\delta\phi_{a}(\sigma)}$, where ${\rho(\sigma)}$ is an arbitrary function. Consider the following comments for clarity: in this change of variables what we are doing is basically promoting ${\epsilon}$ to be ${\epsilon(\sigma)}$. In that this transformation is not a symmetry of the theory, because one will notice that the action and the measure are no longer invariant, what we find is that to leading order of ${\epsilon}$ the variation of the path integral actually becomes proportional to the gradient ${\partial_{a} \rho}$. Notice,

$\displaystyle \int [d\phi^{\prime}]e^{-S[\phi^{\prime}]} = \int [d\phi]e^{-S[\phi]}[1 + \frac{i\epsilon}{2\pi} \int d^{d}\sigma \sqrt{-g} J^{a}(\sigma) \partial_{a}\rho(\sigma) + \mathcal{O}(\epsilon^2)] \ \ (2)$

Where ${J^{a}(\sigma)}$ is a local function that comes from the variation of the measure and the action. Indeed, it should be emphasised, both the measure and the action are local (p.41). The picture one should have in their mind is the same we have been building for some time: namely, we are working in some localised region within which all the operators we’re considering reside. This is one of the big ideas at this point in our study of CFTs.

Now, the idea from (2) is that, whilst we have technically changed the integrand, the partition function has actually remained the same. Why? In the change of variables, we have simply redefined the dummy integration variable ${\phi}$. This invariance of the path integral under change of variables gives the quantum version of Noether’s theorem ${\frac{\epsilon}{2\pi i} \int d^{d}\sigma\sqrt{g} \rho(\sigma) \langle \nabla_{a}J^{a}(\sigma)... \rangle = 0}$, where …’ are arbitrary additional insertions outside of the small local region in which ${\rho}$ is taken to be zero. This is precisely why Polchinski comments that, when we take the function ${\rho}$ to be nonzero only in a small region’, it follows we may consider a path integral with general insertions `…’ outside this region’ (p.41). In other words, as ${\rho}$ is taken to be nonzero in a small region, insertions outside this region are invariant under the change of variables.

From this clever logic, where we have ${\nabla_{a}J^{a} = 0}$ as an operator statement (p.42), we want to proceed to derive the Ward identity. It follows that, as motivated by Polchinski, given (2) we now want to insert new operators into the path integral, noting ${\rho(\sigma)}$ has finite support. Therefore, we may write,

$\displaystyle \int [d\phi^{\prime}] e^{-S[\phi^{\prime}]} A^{\prime}(\sigma_{0}) = \int [d\phi]e^{-S}[A(\sigma_{0}) + \delta A + \frac{i\epsilon}{2\pi} \int d^2\sigma\sqrt{-g} J^{a}(\sigma)A(\sigma_{0})\partial_{a}\rho + \mathcal{O}(\epsilon)^2] \ \ (3)$

Where, again,

$\displaystyle \phi_{a} \rightarrow \phi^{\prime}_{a} = \phi_{a} + \epsilon\cdot \rho(\sigma) \cdot \delta \phi_{a}(\sigma)$

And, now,

$\displaystyle A(\sigma) \rightarrow A^{\prime}(\sigma) = A(\sigma) + \delta(A) \ \ (4)$

Then, we may use ${\int d\phi^{\prime}e^{-S^{\prime}}A^{\prime} = \int d\phi e^{-S}A}$ to show,

$\displaystyle 0 = -\delta A(\sigma_{0}) - \frac{i\epsilon}{2\pi} \int d^2 \sqrt{-g} J^{a}\partial_{a}\rho$

$\displaystyle 0 = - \delta A(\sigma_{0}) + \frac{i\epsilon}{2\pi} \int d^2 \sqrt{-g} \nabla_{a}J^{a}\rho \ \ (5)$

Notice, at this point, that while we now have an integral equation, we can write it without the integral. This implies the following,

$\displaystyle \nabla_{a}J^{a}A(\sigma_{0}) = \frac{1}{\sqrt{-g}}\delta^{d}(\sigma - \sigma_{0}) \frac{2\pi}{i\epsilon} \delta A(\sigma_{0}) + \text{total derivative} \ \ (6)$

Where we have a total ${\sigma}$-derivative. But this statement is equivalent to, more generally,

$\displaystyle \delta A(\sigma_{0}) + \frac{\epsilon}{2\pi i} \int_{R} d^{d}\sigma \sqrt{-g}\nabla_{a}J^{a}(\sigma)A(\sigma_{0}) = 0 \ \ (7)$

Which is precisely the operator relation Polchinski gives in eqn. (2.3.7). In (7) above, what we have done is let ${\rho(\sigma) = 1}$ in some region R and ${0}$ outside that region. In the context of our present theory, the divergence theorem may then be invoked to give,

$\displaystyle \int_{R} d^2 \sigma \sqrt{-g} \nabla_{a}[J^{a}A(\sigma_{0})] = \int_{\partial R}dA n_{a}J^{a} A(\sigma_{0}) = \frac{2\pi}{i \epsilon} \delta A(\sigma_{0}) \ \ (8)$

Where the area element is ${dA}$ and ${n^{a}}$ the outward normal. As Polchinski explains, what we have is a relation between the integral of the current around the operator and the variation of that same operator (p.42). We can see this in the structure of the above equation.

If the current is divergenceless, then the surface interior should give zero – i.e., it should vanish. One might say, more simply, there should therefore be a conservation current. But that would be prior to the insertion of the operator. In other words, we are assuming the symmetry transformation acts on the operator.

The next thing we want to do is convert to holomorphic and antiholomorphic coordinates, instead of ${(\sigma)}$ coordinates. To do this we may rewrite (8) in flat 2-dimensions as,

$\displaystyle \oint_{\partial R} (J_{z}dz - \bar{J}_{z}d\bar{z})A(z_{0}, \bar{z}_{0}) = \frac{2\pi}{\epsilon}\delta A(z_{0}, \bar{z}_{0}) \ \ (9)$

In general, it is difficult to evaluate this integral exactly. We can evaluate it in cases, for example, where the LHS simplifies. It simplifies when, ${J_z}$ is holomorphic, meaning ${\partial J_{z} = 0}$. Therefore, also, ${J_{\bar{z}}}$ is antiholomorphic, meaning ${\partial J_{\bar{z}} = 0}$. In these cases we use residue theorem,

$\displaystyle 2\pi i [Res J_{z}A(z_{0}, \bar{z}_{0}) + Res J_{\bar{z}}A(z_{0}, \bar{z}_{0})] = \frac{2\pi}{\epsilon}\delta A(z_{0}, \bar{z}_{0}) \ \ (10)$

Another way to put it is that the integral (9) selects and gathers the residues in the OPE. And what we find is the Ward identity,

$\displaystyle Res_{z \rightarrow z_{0}} J_{z} A(z_{0}, \bar{z}_{0}) + \bar{Res}_{\bar{z} \rightarrow \bar{z}_{0}} J_{\bar{z}}A(z_{0}, \bar{z}_{0}) = \frac{1}{i\epsilon}\delta A(z_{0}, \bar{z}_{0}) \ \ (11)$

Where ${\text{Res}}$ and ${\bar{\text{Res}}}$ are the coefficients of ${(z - z_{0})^{-1}}$ and ${(\bar{z} - \bar{z}_{0})^{-1}}$.

Now, it should be stated that this Ward identity is extremely powerful. It tells us the variation of any operator in terms of currents. One will see it in action quite a bit in bosonic string theory. Moving forward, we will also be using all the tools that we so far defined or studied. For example, we will eventually look at the OPEs to extract ${\frac{1}{z}}$ like dependence and ${\frac{1}{z} - z_{0}}$ like dependence. And in this way we will learn how operators transform.

All of this is to say, once we find out what is our conformal symmetry group, we will see there is a very close relation between OPEs in the CFT and the singular path of the transformations of the operators. And this will lead us to some rather deep insights.

It should be mentioned, again, that from these introductory notes we will go on to compute numerous detailed examples. For now, the focus is very much on introducing key concepts and familiarising ourselves with some of the deeper ideas in relation to stringy CFTS.

References

Joseph Polchinski. (2005). ‘String Theory: An Introduction to the Bosonic String’, Vol. 1.

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Physics Diary

# Navigating the Swampland (25-27 Sept)

There is an intriguing Swampland workshop set to take place this week. The event has been given the title, ‘Navigating the Swampland’, and it will be held at UAM / IFT beginning tomorrow (25 September) and running through to Friday afternoon. For the interested reader, a stream of all the talks should be made available here. For myself, I am planning on streaming a number of talks so hopefully the feed is of good quality.

I remember hearing about the workshop when I was at IFT in the summer, and I remember thinking that the idea behind its programme was interesting, with a lot of the big names currently working on Swampland stuff scheduled to be there. Moreover, the idea behind the event, as far as I understand, is to organise a sort of comprehensive review – or navigation of – the Swampland, which entails collating important results and discussing the status of each conjecture. From this, might further fundamental structures or properties of quantum gravity be found? There is also of course some emphasis on particle physics and broader cosmological implications.

Of a large list topics I will say that Weigand’s presentation on emergent strings based on a recent paper with Lee and Lerche is one of a few already highlighted in bright yellow. One thing I am also curious to learn is whether anyone will be presenting studies of possible consistency constraints on QFTs given different curved backgrounds. I am also interested in some of the talks that will undoubtedly be based on possible additional universal properties of quantum gravity, as well as talks on potentially new insights into universal properties of the Swampland or those that discuss relating the numerous conjectures in a fundamental way.

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