A NO-GO THEOREM FOR de SITTER COMPACTIFICATIONS?

Abstract

A general framework for studying compactifications in supergravity and string theories was introduced by Candelas, Horowitz, Strominger and Witten1. This was further generalised to take into account the warp factor by de Wit, Smit and Hari Dass2. Though the prime focus of the latter was to find solutions with nontrivial warp factors (shown not to exist under a variety of circumstances), it was shown there that de Sitter compactifications are generically disfavoured (see also3). In this note we place these results in the context of a revived interest in de Sitter spacetimes.