2002/09/26 by Allan Adams, Adams, Allan, John McGreevy +3
Physics and Astronomy · #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th) #Quantum and Classical Electrodynamics #hep-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.hep-th/0209226
31 pages, harvmac big; v2: we report a problem with BRST anomaly explained by J. Polchinski; resolution left to work in progress. refs added
openalex publication_date 2002/09/26 · arxiv created 2002/12/09 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We propose that perturbative quantum field theory and string theory can be consistently modified in the infrared to eliminate, in a radiatively stable manner, tadpole instabilities that arise after supersymmetry breaking. This is achieved by deforming the propagators of classically massless scalar fields and the graviton so as to cancel the contribution of their zero modes. In string theory, this modification of propagators is accomplished by perturbatively deforming the world-sheet action with bi-local operators similar to those that arise in double-trace deformations of AdS/CFT. This results in a perturbatively finite and unitary S-matrix (in the case of string theory, this claim depends on standard assumptions about unitarity in covariant string diagrammatics). The S-matrix is parameterized by arbitrary scalar VEVs, which exacerbates the vacuum degeneracy problem. However, for generic values of these parameters, quantum effects produce masses for the nonzero modes of the scalars, lifting the fluctuating components of the moduli. Warning: in the case of string theory, the simple prescription discussed in this paper fails to decouple BRST trivial modes from the physical S-matrix. A procedure aimed at correcting this is under investigation.