2023/06/28 by Muldrow Etheredge, Ben Heidenreich, Etheredge, Muldrow +9 · 3 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th) #Noncommutative and Quantum Gravity Theories
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2306.16440
openalex publication_date 2023/06/28 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
We study towers of light particles that appear in infinite-distance limits of moduli spaces of 9-dimensional N=1 string theories, some of which notably feature decompactification limits with running string coupling. The lightest tower in such decompactification limits consists of the non-BPS Kaluza-Klein modes of Type I' string theory, whose masses depend nontrivially on the moduli of the theory. We work out the moduli-dependence by explicit computation, finding that despite the running decompactification the Distance Conjecture remains satisfied with an exponential decay rate α≥ (1)/(√(d-2)) in accordance with the sharpened Distance Conjecture. The related sharpened Convex Hull Scalar Weak Gravity Conjecture also passes stringent tests. Our results non-trivially test the Emergent String Conjecture, while highlighting the important subtlety that decompactification can lead to a running solution rather than to a higher-dimensional vacuum.