Membrane Limits in Quantum Gravity

with Daniel Kläwer and Timo Weigand

Abstract

It is expected that infinite distance limits in the moduli space of quantum gravity are accompanied by a tower of light states. In view of the emergent string conjecture, this tower must either induce a decompactification or correspond to the emergence of a tensionless critical string. We study the consistency conditions implied by this conjecture on the asymptotic behavior of quantum gravity under dimensional reduction. If the emergent string descends from a (2+1)-dimensional membrane in a higher-dimensional theory, we find that such a membrane must parametrically decouple from the Kaluza-Klein scale. We verify this censorship against emergent membrane limits, where the membrane would sit at the Kaluza-Klein scale, in the hypermultiplet moduli space of Calabi-Yau 3-fold compactifications of string/M-theory. At the classical level, a putative membrane limit arises, up to duality, from an M5-brane wrapping the asymptotically shrinking special Lagrangian 3-cycle corresponding to the Strominger-Yau-Zaslow fiber of the Calabi-Yau. We show how quantum corrections in the moduli space obstruct such a limit and instead lead to a decompactification to 11 dimensions, where the role of the M5- and M2-branes are interchanged.

Swampland Seminar Talk, Harvard University (31/01/2022)

BibTex Citation

@article{Alvarez-Garcia:2021pxo,
    author = {\'Alvarez-Garc\'\i{}a, Rafael and Kl\"awer, Daniel and Weigand, Timo},
    title = "{Membrane limits in quantum gravity}",
    eprint = "2112.09136",
    archivePrefix = "arXiv",
    primaryClass = "hep-th",
    reportNumber = "ZMP-HH/21-25",
    doi = "10.1103/PhysRevD.105.066024",
    journal = "Phys. Rev. D",
    volume = "105",
    number = "6",
    pages = "066024",
    year = "2022"
}