Curvature corrections to KPV: Do we need deep throats?

Abstract

We consider α 2 curvature corrections to the action of an NS5-brane which plays the key role in the metastability analysis of warped anti-D3-brane uplifts by Kachru, Pearson and Verlinde (KPV). Such corrections can dramatically alter the KPV analysis. We find that for the α 2 -corrections to be sufficiently small to recover essentially the leading-order KPV potential one needs a surprisingly large S 3 radius, corresponding to g s M > 20. In the context of the Large Volume Scenario (LVS) this implies a D3-tadpole of at least O(10 3 −10 4 ). However, large α 2 -corrections do not necessarily spoil the uplift in KPV. Rather, as the curvature corrections lower the tension of the brane, a novel uplifting mechanism suggests itself where the smallness of the uplift is achieved by a tuning of curvature corrections. A key underlying assumption is the existence of a dense discretuum of g s . This new mechanism does not require a deep warped throat, thereby sidestepping the main difficulty in uplifting KKLT and LVS. However, all of the above has to be treated as a preliminary exploration of possibilities since, at the moment, not all relevant correction at the order α 2 are known.