Bubbles of Nothing in Flux Compactifications

Abstract

We construct a simple AdS_4 x S^1 flux compactification stabilized by a complex scalar field winding the extra dimension and demonstrate an instability via nucleation of a bubble of nothing. This occurs when the Kaluza -- Klein dimension degenerates to a point, defining the bubble surface. Because the extra dimension is stabilized by a flux, the bubble surface must be charged, in this case under the axionic part of the complex scalar. This smooth geometry can be seen as a de Sitter topological defect with asymptotic behavior identical to the pure compactification. We discuss how a similar construction can be implemented in more general Freund -- Rubin compactifications.

16 pages, 5 figures References added

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Cited by in corpus (19)

• On 'Nothing'
• Bubbles of Nothing and the Fastest Decay in the Landscape
• Nothing really matters
• Supersymmetry Breaking and Stability in String Vacua: brane dynamics, bubbles and the swampland
• Decay of flux vacua to nothing
• Bubbles of Nothing and Supersymmetric Compactifications
• Bubbles from Nothing
• Bubble of nothing decays of unstable theories
• Warped Ricci-flat reductions
• de Sitter Decays to Infinity
• de Sitter Bubbles and the Swampland
• The decay of hot KK space
• Gravity waves from cosmic bubble collisions
• On String Vacua without Supersymmetry: brane dynamics, bubbles and holography
• Waves in the Witten Bubble of Nothing and the Hawking Wormhole
• Neutralizing Topological Obstructions to Bubbles of Nothing
• Strongly Warped BPS Domain Walls
• Fermions and Kaluza-Klein vacuum decay: a toy model
• Morse-Bott inequalities, Topology Change and Cobordisms to Nothing