Brane nucleation in supersymmetric models

Abstract

This paper explores the process of vacuum decay in supersymmetric models related to flux compactifications. In particular, we describe these instabilities within supersymmetric Lagrangians for a single three-form multiplet. This multiplet combines scalar fields, representing the moduli fields in four dimensions, with 3-form fields that influence the potential for these moduli via the integer flux of their associated 4-form field strength. Furthermore, using supersymmetry as a guide we obtain the form of the couplings of these fields to the membranes that act as sources to the 3-form potentials. Adding small supersymmetry breaking terms to these Lagrangians one can obtain instanton solutions describing the decay of the vacua in these models by the formation of a membrane bubble. These instantons combine the usual Coleman-de Luccia and the Brown-Teitelboim formalisms in a single unified model. We study simple numerical examples of theories with and without gravity in this new framework and generalize known Euclidean methods to accomodate the simulataneous inclusion of scalar fields and charged membranes to these instanton solutions. Moreover, we show explicitly in these examples how one recovers the static supersymmetric solutions in the limiting case where the supersymmetry breaking terms vanish. In this limit, the bubble becomes infinite and flat and represents a hybrid between the usual supersymmetric domain walls of field theory models and the brane solutions interpolating between the supersymmetric vacua; a sort of dressed supermembrane BPS solution. Finally, we briefly comment on the implications of these solutions in cosmological models based on the String Theory Landscape where these type of 4d effective theories could be relevant in inflationary scenarios.