A stable vacuum of the tachyonic E8 string

Abstract

We consider tachyon condensation in unstable ten-dimensional heterotic string theory with gauge group E8. In the background of a lightlike linear dilaton rolling to weak coupling, we find an exact solution in which the theory decays to a stable ground state. The final state represents a new, modular-invariant perturbative string theory, tachyon-free in nine spacetime dimensions with a spacelike dilaton gradient, E8 gauge group and no spacetime supersymmetry.

30 pages, 4 figures; v2: citations added

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Cited by in corpus (9)

• Dynamics and Stability of Light-Like Tachyon Condensation
• Discrete gauge symmetries from (closed string) tachyon condensation
• Non-Relativistic Superstring Theories
• Cosmology of the closed string tachyon
• Stable Vacua for Tachyonic Strings
• Light-like tachyon condensation in Open String Field Theory
• Quantum Information Theory of the Gravitational Anomaly
• Quantum Effects on Tachyon Dynamics
• Dynamical Cobordisms in General Relativity and String Theory