2006/03/09 by Marijn Davidse, Davidse, Marijn
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 #hep-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.hep-th/0603073
149 pages, 3 figures, 1 table, based on Ph.D. thesis
arxiv created 2006/03/09 · openalex publication_date 2006/03/09 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We investigate membrane and fivebrane instanton effects in type IIA string theory compactified on rigid Calabi-Yau manifolds. These effects contribute to the low-energy effective action of the universal hypermultiplet, in four dimensional spacetime. To compute the nonperturbative effects due to the fivebrane instanton to the universal hypermultiplet, an instanton calculation is performed. In the absence of fivebrane instantons, the quaternionic geometry of the hypermultiplet is determined by solutions of the three-dimensional Toda equation. We construct solutions describing membrane instantons and find perfect agreement with string theory predictions. In the context of flux compactifications we discuss how membrane instantons contribute to the scalar potential and the stabilization of moduli. Finally, we demonstrate the existence of meta-stable de Sitter vacua.