What if string theory has no de Sitter vacua?

Abstract

We present a brief overview of attempts to construct de Sitter vacua in string theory and explain how the results of this 20-year endeavor could point to the fact that string theory harbors no de Sitter vacua at all. Making such a statement is often considered controversial and "bad news for string theory". We discuss how perhaps the opposite can be true.

30 +9 pages, 1 figure, v2: references added

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Cited by in corpus (258)

• The Swampland: Introduction and Review
• Distance and de Sitter Conjectures on the Swampland
• New physics in light of the $H_0$ tension: an alternative view
• Bounds on Slow Roll and the de Sitter Swampland
• Lectures on the Swampland Program in String Compactifications
• Revisiting a negative cosmological constant from low-redshift data
• The string swampland constraints require multi-field inflation
• Graduated dark energy: Observational hints of a spontaneous sign switch in the cosmological constant
• Robust Preference for Dynamical Dark Energy in DESI BAO and SN Measurements
• De Sitter vs Quintessence in String Theory
• The dS swampland conjecture and the Higgs potential
• The zoo plot meets the swampland: mutual (in)consistency of single-field inflation, string conjectures, and cosmological data
• Relaxing cosmological tensions with a sign switching cosmological constant
• Beyond $\Lambda$CDM with Low and High Redshift Data: Implications for Dark Energy
• Cosmological window onto the string axiverse and the supersymmetry breaking scale
• A note on Inflation and the Swampland
• Further refining the de Sitter swampland conjecture
• The web of swampland conjectures and the TCC bound
• Emergent de Sitter Cosmology from Decaying AdS
• Festina Lente: EFT Constraints from Charged Black Hole Evaporation in de Sitter
• Dark energy in light of the early JWST observations: case for a negative cosmological constant?
• A Holographic Derivation of the Weak Gravity Conjecture
• Swampland Variations on a Theme by KKLT
• A comment on effective field theories of flux vacua
• Eternal Inflation and Swampland Conjectures
• Do We Live in the Swampland?
• Pure de Sitter space and the island moving back in time
• Control issues of KKLT
• Bounds on Slow Roll at the Boundary of the Landscape
• Avoiding the string swampland in single-field inflation: Excited initial states
• Runaway Quintessence, Out of the Swampland
• Swampland Conjectures and Late-Time Cosmology
• Late time transitions in the quintessence field and the $H_0$ tension
• Clockwork Axions in Cosmology: Is Chromonatural Inflation Chrononatural?
• Conditions for (No) Eternal Inflation
• Negative cosmological constant in the dark energy sector: tests from JWST photometric and spectroscopic observations of high-redshift galaxies
• Brane gaugino condensate in 10d
• F-theory and Dark Energy
• A 10d view on the KKLT AdS vacuum and uplifting
• The rapid-turn inflationary attractor
• Primordial backgrounds of relic gravitons
• Understanding KKLT from a 10d perspective
• The FL bound and its phenomenological implications
• The quantum swampland
• Swampland, Axions and Minimal Warm Inflation
• Pixelated Dark Energy
• Quantum Corrections and the de Sitter Swampland Conjecture
• Logarithmic loop corrections, moduli stabilisation and de Sitter vacua in string theory
• Open problems on classical de Sitter solutions
• From Amplitudes to Contact Cosmological Correlators
• Classical de Sitter Solutions of Ten-Dimensional Supergravity
• Runaway potentials in warm inflation satisfying the swampland conjectures
• Combining pre- and post-recombination new physics to address cosmological tensions: case study with varying electron mass and sign-switching cosmological constant
• Weakly Coupled de Sitter Vacua with Fluxes and the Swampland
• Quantum Log-Corrections to Swampland Conjectures
• de Sitter in non-supersymmetric string theories: no-go theorems and brane-worlds
• Hyperinflation generalised: from its attractor mechanism to its tension with the `swampland conjectures'
• Asymptotic safety, string theory and the weak gravity conjecture
• Out of the Swampland with Multifield Quintessence?
• Heterotic de Sitter Beyond Modular Symmetry
• The LVS Parametric Tadpole Constraint
• de Sitter Vacua in the String Landscape
• No-scale and scale-separated flux vacua from IIA on G2 orientifolds
• Phenomenological Consequences of the Refined Swampland Conjecture
• Scaling limits of dS vacua and the swampland
• Swampland criteria for a dark-energy dominated universe, ensuing from Gaussian process and H(z) data analysis
• Swampland conjecture in $f(R)$ gravity by the Noether Symmetry Approach
• New accelerating solutions in late-time cosmology
• Electroweak relaxation of cosmological hierarchy
• LVS de Sitter Vacua are probably in the Swampland
• Small-Field and Scale-Free: Inflation and Ekpyrosis at their Extremes
• Twisted Cohomotopy implies M-theory anomaly cancellation on 8-manifolds
• Small Flux Superpotentials for Type IIB Flux Vacua Close to a Conifold
• de Sitter Cosmology on an expanding bubble
• Draining the Swampland
• The $F$-term Problem and other Challenges of Stringy Quintessence
• Asymptotic Observables and the Swampland
• Back-Reaction of Super-Hubble Cosmological Perturbations Beyond Perturbation Theory
• Quintessence and the Swampland: The numerically controlled regime of moduli space
• Quintessence Axion Dark Energy and a Solution to the Hubble Tension
• De Sitter Vacua in No-Scale Supergravity
• Cosmic Birefringence from Monodromic Axion Dark Energy
• Trans-Planckian Censorship Conjecture and Non-thermal post-inflationary history
• String Tension between de Sitter vacua and Curvature Corrections
• Loops, Local Corrections and Warping in the LVS and other Type IIB Models
• The supersymmetric anti-D3-brane action in KKLT
• The Boundaries of KKLT
• Cosmology with relativistically varying physical constants
• What does Inflation say about Dark Energy given the Swampland Conjectures?
• Supersymmetric embedding of antibrane polarization
• No classical (anti-)de Sitter solutions with O8-planes
• Effective Theory of Warped Compactifications and the Implications for KKLT
• Putting the Boot into the Swampland
• Constraints on holographic multi-field inflation and models based on the Hamilton-Jacobi formalism
• Intricacies of classical de Sitter string backgrounds
• New non-perturbative de Sitter vacua in ${\alpha }^{\prime }$-complete cosmology
• Topological Constraints in the LARGE-Volume Scenario
• Late-time Cosmic Acceleration from Compactification
• Emergent Dark Universe and the Swampland Criteria
• de Sitter Space as a Glauber-Sudarshan State
• Horndeski in the Swampland
• Four-dimensional de Sitter space is a Glauber-Sudarshan state in string theory
• Dark bubbles: decorating the wall
• Three-dimensional flux vacua from IIB on co-calibrated G2 orientifolds
• Non-Singular Bounces Catalysed by Dark Energy
• On de Sitter Spacetime and String Theory
• The unbearable lightness of charged gravitini
• O6-plane backreaction on scale-separated Type IIA AdS${}_3$ vacua
• Tachyonic de Sitter solutions of 10d type II supergravities
• AdS scale separation and the distance conjecture
• de Sitter, ${\alpha }^{\prime }$-Corrections & Duality Invariant Cosmology
• On Asymptotic Dark Energy in String Theory
• Supersymmetry, T-duality and Heterotic ${\alpha }^{\prime }$-corrections
• A dS obstruction and its phenomenological consequences
• Curvature corrections to KPV: Do we need deep throats?
• New class of generalized coupling theories
• Thermal Dark Energy
• Negative scalar potentials and the swampland: an Anti-Trans-Planckian Censorship Conjecture
• Cosmological Trans-Planckian Conjectures are not Effective
• Planck-PR4 anisotropy spectra show (better) consistency with General Relativity
• Non-Supersymmetric AdS from String Theory
• Dark Energy and String Theory
• Isocurvature Perturbations of Dark Energy and Dark Matter from the Swampland Conjecture
• Stabilising all Kähler moduli in perturbative LVS
• A stringy realization of a small and positive cosmological constant in dark bubble cosmology
• String Regge trajectory in de Sitter space and implications for inflation
• Quantum Fine-Tuning in Stringy Quintessence Models
• De Sitter and Anti-de Sitter branes in self-tuning models
• Racetrack Potentials and the de Sitter Swampland Conjectures
• Inflation from the internal volume in type IIB/F-theory compactification
• Weak Gravity Conjecture in de Sitter space-time
• Crisis on Infinite Earths: Short-lived de Sitter Vacua in the String Theory Landscape
• Anti-brane uplift instability from goldstino condensation
• $\mathbf{O}(D,D)$ completion of the Friedmann equations
• Constraints and Horizons for de Sitter with Extra Dimensions
• De Sitter bubbles from anti-de Sitter fluctuations
• Non-abelian U-duality at work
• Scattering in the static patch of de Sitter space
• Rigid nongeometric orientifolds and the swampland
• Effective Theories as Truncated Trans-Series and Scale Separated Compactifications
• Racing through the swampland: de Sitter uplift vs weak gravity
• Is Trans-Planckian Censorship a Swampland Conjecture?
• Mass Hierarchies and Quantum Gravity Constraints in DKMM-refined KKLT
• Bubble of nothing decays of unstable theories
• Sharpening the Boundaries Between Flux Landscape and Swampland by Tadpole Charge
• ${\alpha }^{\prime }$ corrections to KPV: An uplifting story
• Note on de Sitter vacua from perturbative and non-perturbative dynamics in type IIB/F-theory compactifications
• Winding Uplifts and the Challenges of Weak and Strong SUSY Breaking in AdS
• de Sitter Decays to Infinity
• $T$-dualizing the de-Sitter no-go scenarios
• Discrete Gauge Symmetries and the Weak Gravity Conjecture
• Constructing stable de Sitter in M-theory from higher curvature corrections
• Dark bubbles and black holes
• A higher-dimensional view on quantum cosmology
• Non-supersymmetric String Models from Anti-D3-/D7-branes in Strongly Warped Throats
• Moduli stabilization with non-geometric fluxes -- comments on tadpole contributions and de-Sitter vacua
• 6D (1,1) Gauged Supergravities from Orientifold Compactifications
• Influence of pressure anisotropy and non-metricity parameter on mass-radius relation and stability of millisecond pulsar in $f(Q)$ gravity
• de Sitter versus anti-de Sitter in Horndeski-like gravity
• Type IIB flux compactifications with $h^{1,1}=0$
• de Sitter Bubbles and the Swampland
• Bubble needs strings
• Model Independent Analysis of Supernova Data, Dark Energy, Trans-Planckian Censorship and the Swampland
• Two-field constant roll inflation
• On the TransPlanckian Censorship Conjecture in Holographic Cosmology
• Classical de Sitter solutions in three dimensions without tachyons?
• Curing with hemlock: escaping the swampland using instabilities from string theory
• Remarks on the effects of quantum corrections on moduli stabilization and de Sitter vacua in type IIB string theory
• The inheritance of energy conditions: Revisiting no-go theorems in string compactifications
• Catalytic Creation of Baby Bubble Universe with Small Positive Cosmological Constant
• Modular Inflation at Higher Level $N$
• Resurgence of a de Sitter Glauber-Sudarshan State: Nodal Diagrams and Borel Resummation
• Gravitational waves in dark bubble cosmology
• Conifold dynamics and axion monodromies
• De Sitter Quantum Breaking, Swampland Conjectures and Thermal Strings
• Three-forms and Fayet-Iliopoulos terms in Supergravity: Scanning Planck mass and BPS domain walls
• On stable type IIA de-Sitter vacua with geometric flux
• Completing the D7-brane local gaugino action
• Contracting Cosmologies and the Swampland
• Stringy Bubbles Solve de Sitter Troubles
• Comments on the stability of the KPV state
• Occurrence of semiclassical vacuum decay
• Reference level of the vacuum energy density of the Universe and astrophysical data
• Cosmological Inflation and Meta-Empirical Theory Assessment
• (In)stability of de Sitter vacuum in light of distance conjecture and emergence proposal
• de Sitter decay through goldstino evaporation
• A Note on the dS Swampland Conjecture, Non-BPS branes and K-theory
• Rejuvenating the hope of a swampland consistent inflated multiverse with tachyonic inflation in the high energy RS-II Braneworld
• Features of a dark energy model in string theory
• Swampland de Sitter Conjectures in No-Scale Supergravity Models
• Compact objects and the swampland
• Oh, wait, O8 de Sitter may be unstable!
• Dark energy with the help of interacting dark sectors
• Expanding Universe and Dynamical Compactification Using Yang-Mills Instantons
• Forays into the dark side of the swamp
• Consistency of Cubic Galileon Cosmology: Model-Independent Bounds from Background Expansion and Perturbative Analyses
• Lorentz violating inflation and the Swampland
• Higher Structures in M-Theory
• Consistent truncation and de Sitter space from gravitational instantons
• Quintessential Implications of the presence of AdS in the Dark Energy sector
• Dyonic Catalysis in the KPV Vacuum Decay
• The Super-Stuckelberg procedure and dS in Pure Supergravity
• SUSY-Breaking Scenarios With a Mildly Violated R Symmetry
• On Dark Energy and Quantum Gravity
• Asymptotic bound on slow-roll parameter in stringy quintessence model
• Cosmic eggs to relax the cosmological constant
• Spinors in Supersymmetric dS/CFT
• Consistency conditions for O-plane unsmearing from second-order perturbation theory
• Swampland conjectures and single field inflation in non-standard cosmological scenarios
• A Local Wheeler-DeWitt Measure for the String Landscape
• dS Spaces and Brane Worlds in Exotic String Theories
• Quantum (in)stability of maximally symmetric space-times
• $N=(2,0)$ AdS${}_3$ Solutions of M-theory
• dS${}_4$ universe emergent from Kerr-AdS${}_5$ spacetime: bubble nucleation catalyzed by a black hole
• Goldstino condensation at large N
• Catalytic Creation of Bubble Universe Induced by Quintessence in Five Dimensions
• Deriving the Gibbons-Maldacena-Nunez no-go theorem from the Raychaudhuri equation
• Spiky strings in de Sitter space
• Over-extremal brane shells from string theory?
• Can an Anti-de Sitter Vacuum in the Dark Energy Sector Explain JWST High-Redshift Galaxy and Reionization Observations?
• On Stringy de Sitter Spacetimes
• Inflation in non-local hybrid metric-Palatini gravity
• Shedding light on dark bubble cosmology
• What if string theory has a de Sitter excited state?
• Do we live on the End of the World?
• Hitchhiker's Guide to the Swampland: The Cosmologist's Handbook to the string-theoretical Swampland Programme
• On the limitations of non-geometric fluxes to realize dS vacua
• 4D dS vacua from AdS vacua of type IIB string theory and AdS distance conjecture
• Aether, Dark Energy, and String Compactifications
• Charged Nariai black holes on the dark bubble
• Higgs in Nilpotent Supergravity: Vacuum Energy and Festina Lente
• Enhancement of axion decay constants in type IIA theory?
• Runaway potentials and a massive goldstino
• Uniform Rate Inflation
• Quadratic curvature corrections to stringy effective actions and the absence of de Sitter vacua
• O(16)$\times$O(16) heterotic theory on $Ad{S}_3\times S^3\times T^4$
• On possible composite structure of scalar fields in expanding universe
• Late-time Cosmology without Dark Sector but with Closed String Massless Sector
• A correspondence between strings in the Hagedorn phase and asymptotically de Sitter space
• Complex Linear Multiplets and Local Supersymmetry Breaking
• On the F-term problem and quintessence supersymmetry breaking
• Why $w\ne -1$? Anthropic Selection in a $\Lambda$ + Axion Dark Energy Model
• Gravitational Core of Double Field Theory: Lecture Notes
• The string theory swampland in the Euclid, SKA and Vera Rubin observatory era
• Symmetry Points of $\mathcal{N}=1$ Modular Geometry
• Implications of single field inflation in general cosmological scenarios on the nature of dark energy given the swampland conjectures
• Bounds on tower mass scales in the presence of throats of different warping
• $d{S}_4$ vacua from matter-coupled 4D N=4 gauged supergravity
• A gravitational action with stringy $Q$ and $R$ fluxes via deformed differential graded Poisson algebras
• Back-reaction in massless de Sitter QFTs: holography, gravitational DBI action and f(R) gravity
• Cosmological solutions from 4D $N=4$ matter-coupled supergravity
• Towards an explicit construction of de Sitter solutions in classical supergravity
• Species scale associated with Weinberg operator and bound on Majorana neutrino mass
• Stringy multifield quintessence and the Swampland
• Background instability of quintessence model in light of entropy and distance conjecture
• Solar System and Atomic Clock Bounds on Locally Coupled Swampland Scalars
• Emergent de Sitter Cosmology Near Black Hole Horizon
• Systematic exploration of the non-geometric flux landscape