Leaving the Swampland: non-geometric fluxes and the distance conjecture

Abstract

Abstract We study a Type IIB isotropic toroidal compactification with non-geometric fluxes. Under the assumption of a hierarchy on the moduli, an effective scalar potential is constructed showing a runaway direction on the real part of the Kähler modulus while the rest of the moduli are stabilized. For the effective model to be consistent it is required that displacements in the field space are finite. Infinite distances in field space would imply a breakdown in the hierarchy assumption on the moduli. In this context, the Swamp-land Distance Conjecture is satisfied suggesting the possibility of leaving or entering the Swampland by a parametric control of the fluxes. This is achieved upon allowing the non-geometric fluxes to take fractional values. In the process we are able to compute the cut-off scale below which the theory is valid, completely depending on the flux configuration. We also report on the appearance of a discrete spectrum of values for the string coupling at the level of the effective theory.