We discuss the four-dimensional N = 1 effective approach in the study of warped type II flux compactifications with SU (3) × SU (3)-structure to AdS 4 or flat Minkowski space-time. The non-trivial warping makes it natural to use a supergravity formulation invariant under local complexified Weyl transformations. We obtain the classical superpotential from a standard argument involving domain walls and generalized calibrations and show how the resulting F-flatness and D-flatness equations exactly reproduce the full ten-dimensional supersymmetry equations. Furthermore, we consider the effect of non-perturbative corrections to this superpotential arising from gaugino condensation or Euclidean D-brane instantons. For the latter we derive the supersymmetry conditions in N = 1 flux vacua in full generality. We find that the non-perturbative corrections induce a quantum deformation of the internal generalized geometry. Smeared instantons allow to understand KKLT-like AdS vacua from a ten-dimensional point of view. On the other hand, non-smeared instantons in IIB warped Calabi-Yau compactifications 'destabilize' the Calabi-Yau complex structure into a genuine generalized complex one. This deformation gives a geometrical explanation of the non-trivial superpotential for mobile D3-branes induced by the non-perturbative corrections.

We elaborate on the construction of de Sitter solutions from IIA orientifolds of SU(3)-structure manifolds that solve the 10-dimensional equations of motion at tree-level in the approximation of smeared sources. First we classify geometries that are orbifolds of a group manifold covering space which, upon the proper inclusion of O6 planes, can be described within the framework of N=1 supergravity in 4D. Then we scan systematically for de Sitter solutions, obtained as critical points of an effective 4D potential. Apart from finding many new solutions we emphasize the challenges in constructing explicit classical de Sitter vacua, which have sofar not been met. These challenges are interesting avenues for further research and include finding solutions that are perturbatively stable, satisfy charge and flux quantization, and have genuine localized (versus smeared) orientifold sources. This paper intends to be self-contained and pedagogical, and thus can serve as a guide to the necessary technical tools required for this line of research. In an appendix we explain how to study flux and charge quantization in the presence of a non-trivial H-field using twisted homology.Comment: 50 pages, 3 figure

We study cosmological properties of type IIA compactifications on orientifolds of SU(3)-structure manifolds with non-vanishing geometric flux. These compactifications give rise to effective 4D N = 1 supergravity theories that do not fall under some recentlyproven no-go theorems against de Sitter vacua and slow-roll inflation. Focusing on a wellunderstood class of models based on coset spaces, however, we can use a refined no-go theorem that rules out de Sitter vacua and slow-roll inflation in all but one case. The refined no-go theorem uses the dilaton and a specific linear combination of the Kähler moduli, which is different from the overall volume modulus. It puts a lower bound on the first slow-roll parameter: ǫ ≥ 2. The only case not ruled out is the manifold SU(2)×SU(2), for which we indeed find critical points with ǫ numerically zero. However, all the points we could find have a tachyon corresponding to an eta-parameter η −2.4.

We consider string theory compactifications of the form AdS 4 ×M 6 with orientifold six-planes, where M 6 is a six-dimensional compact space that is either a nilmanifold or a coset. For all known solutions of this type we obtain the four-dimensional N = 1 low energy effective theory by computing the superpotential, the Kähler potential and the mass spectrum for the light moduli. For the nilmanifold examples we perform a cross-check on the result for the mass spectrum by calculating it alternatively from a direct Kaluza-Klein reduction and find perfect agreement. We show that in all but one of the coset models all moduli are stabilized at the classical level. As an application we show that all but one of the coset models can potentially be used to bypass a recent no-go theorem against inflation in type IIA theory.