Flux Compactifications on Calabi-Yau Threefolds

Abstract

The presence of RR and NS three-form fluxes in type IIB string compactification on a Calabi-Yau orientifold gives rise to a nontrivial superpotential W for the dilaton and complex structure moduli. This superpotential is computable in terms of the period integrals of the Calabi-Yau manifold. In this paper, we present explicit examples of both supersymmetric and nonsupersymmetric solutions to the resulting 4d N=1 supersymmetric no-scale supergravity, including some nonsupersymmetric solutions with relatively small values of W. Our examples arise on orientifolds of the hypersurfaces in $W{P}_{1,1,1,1,4}^4$ and $W{P}_{1,1,2,2,6}^4$. They serve as explicit illustrations of several of the ingredients which have played a role in the recent proposals for constructing de Sitter vacua of string theory.

30 pages, harvmac big; refs and minor comments added