Merging the weak gravity and distance conjectures using BPS extremal black holes

Abstract

Abstract We analyze the charge-to-mass structure of BPS states in general infinite-distance limits of $$ \mathcal{N} $$ N = 2 compactifications of Type IIB string theory on Calabi-Yau three-folds, and use the results to sharpen the formulation of the Swampland Conjectures in the presence of multiple gauge and scalar fields. We show that the BPS bound coincides with the black hole extremality bound in these infinite distance limits, and that the charge-to-mass vectors of the BPS states lie on degenerate ellipsoids with only two non-degenerate directions, regardless of the number of moduli or gauge fields. We provide the numerical value of the principal radii of the ellipsoid in terms of the classification of the singularity that is being approached. We use these findings to inform the Swampland Distance Conjecture, which states that a tower of states becomes exponentially light along geodesic trajectories towards infinite field distance. We place general bounds on the mass decay rate λ of this tower in terms of the black hole extremality bound, which in our setup implies $$ \lambda \ge 1/\sqrt{6} $$ λ ≥ 1 / 6 . We expect this framework to persist beyond $$ \mathcal{N} $$ N = 2 as long as a gauge coupling becomes small in the infinite field distance limit.