Oh, wait, O8 de Sitter may be unstable!

Abstract

We analyze the stability of four-dimensional de Sitter vacua constructed by compactifying massive Type IIA supergravity in the presence of two O8 sources [1]. When embedded in String Theory the first source has a clear interpretation as an O8${}_{-}$ plane, but the second one could correspond to either an O8${}_{+}$ plane or to an O8${}_{-}$ plane with 16 D8-branes on top. We find that this latter solution has a tachyonic instability, corresponding to the D8-branes moving away from the O8${}_{-}$ plane. We comment on the possible ways of distinguishing between these sources.

19 pages and 4 figures. Version 2: references added

References in corpus (7)

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• Swampland Variations on a Theme by KKLT
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• Stable non-supersymmetric Anti-de Sitter vacua of massive IIA supergravity
• The Moduli Space and M(atrix) Theory of 9d N=1 Backgrounds of M/String Theory
• Soft branes in supersymmetry-breaking backgrounds
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