Stable Vacua for Tachyonic Strings

Abstract

In addition to the familiar string theories with spacetime supersymmetry, there exist a number of non-supersymmetric ten-dimensional superstrings. Nearly all of these theories have closed string tachyons, indicating a misidentification of the vacuum around which they are to be quantized. In this work, we identify (meta)stable vacua for all known tachyonic superstrings. These vacua are all lower-dimensional, with most of them being familiar two-dimensional string theories. However, there are also intriguing examples of solutions in dimensions 6, 8, and 9, with respective gauge groups $E_7\times E_7$, $SU(16)$, and $E_8$. These special vacua have positive vacuum energy and no moduli.

arXiv comment28 pages; v3: references added

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• Lectures in Quantum Gravity