Where is String Theory?

Abstract

We use the S-matrix bootstrap to carve out the space of unitary, crossing symmetric and supersymmetric graviton scattering amplitudes in ten dimensions. We focus on the leading Wilson coefficient $\alpha$ controlling the leading correction to maximal supergravity. The negative region $\alpha <0$ is excluded by a simple dual argument based on linearized unitarity (the desert). A whole semi-infinite region $\alpha \gtrsim 0.14$ is allowed by the primal bootstrap (the garden). A finite intermediate region is excluded by non-perturbative unitarity (the swamp). Remarkably, string theory seems to cover all (or at least almost all) the garden from very large positive $\alpha$ -- at weak coupling -- to the swamp boundary -- at strong coupling.

arXiv comment3 pages + appendices, 9 figures. v2 with improved data, 1 figure added, 1 appendix added. The submission contains the Mathematica notebook used for the fit analysis and a .txt file with the data

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