Flux vacua with approximate flat directions

Abstract

Abstract We present a novel method to obtain type IIB flux vacua with flat directions at tree level. We perform appropriate choices of flux quanta that induce relations between the flux superpotential and its derivatives. This method is implemented in toroidal and Calabi-Yau compactifications in the large complex structure limit. Explicit solutions are obtained and classified on the basis of duality equivalences. In the toroidal case we present solutions with N = 1 and N = 2 supersymmetry and arbitrarily weak coupling. In Calabi-Yaus we find novel perturbatively flat vacua, as well as solutions with non-zero flux superpotential and an axionic flat direction which represent a promising starting point for de Sitter constructions from non-zero F-terms in the complex structure sector. The higher order (perturbative and non-perturbative) effects that can lift these flat directions are discussed. We also outline applications in a wide variety of settings involving the classical Regge growth conjecture, inflation and quintessence, supersymmetry breaking and F-term de Sitter uplifting.