High Energy Theory Informal Seminar - David Marsh, Cornell University - Wasteland of Random Supergravities
Abstract: I will discuss how in a general N = 1 supergravity with N ≫ 1 scalar fields, an exponentially small fraction of the de Sitter critical points are metastable vacua. For random superpotentials and Kähler potentials, the Hessian matrix is well-approximated by a simple matrix model, from which the eigenvalue spectrum can be obtained analytically by the techniques of random matrix theory. For typical critical points, a significant fraction of the eigenvalues are negative, and eigenvalue repulsion makes metastable critical points extremely rare, constituting a fraction of exp(−cN^p) of all critical points, where numerical evidence suggests p ≈ 1.5 for generic critical points.These results have significant implications for the counting of de Sitter vacua in string theory, but the number of vacua remains vast.
Location: Other See Notes
Date/Time: 02/28/12 at 12:30 pm - 02/28/12 at 2:00 pm
To be held in the PCTS Lounge
Category: High Energy Experiment Seminar
Department: Physics