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Rev. Mod. Phys. 79, 733–796 (2007)

Flux compactification

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Michael R. Douglas*
Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rutgers University, Piscataway, New Jersey 08855, USA and Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques, 35 route des Chartres, Bures-sur-Yvette 91440, France

Shamit Kachru†
Department of Physics and SLAC, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA and Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106, USA

Published 25 May 2007

Recent work is reviewed in which compactifications of string and M theory are constructed in which all scalar fields (moduli) are massive, and supersymmetry is broken with a small positive cosmological constant, features needed to reproduce real world physics. In this work it is explained that there is a “landscape” of string/M theory vacua, perhaps containing many candidates for describing real world physics, and arguments are presented for and against this idea. Statistical surveys of the landscape are discussed, as well as the prospects for testable consequences of this picture, such as observable effects of moduli, constraints on early cosmology, and predictions for the scale of supersymmetry breaking.

© 2007 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/RevModPhys.79.733
DOI:
10.1103/RevModPhys.79.733
PACS:
11.25.Mj, 11.25.Wx, 04.50.+h, 12.60.−i

*Electronic address: mrd@physics.rutgers.edu

†Electronic address: skachru@stanford.edu

 
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