Abstract
We study type IIA orientifold compactifications with fluxes that give rise to perturbatively stable, non-supersymmetric AdS4 vacua with D6-brane gauge sectors. Non-perturbative instabilities can be mediated by D8-branes wrapped on the six internal dimensions X6, if they reduce to 4d membranes with a charge Q larger than its tension T. The mismatch Q ≠ T arises due to i) curvature corrections and ii) the BIon backreaction of D6-branes wrapping 3-cycles of X6. We give a simple expression for the second effect in toroidal orientifolds, and find that only pairs of 3-cycles at SU(2) angles contribute to it. They either contribute towards Q > T or Q < T depending on the 3-cycles separation, allowing to engineer 4d \( \mathcal{N} \) = 0 vacua in tension with the Weak Gravity Conjecture for membranes.
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Casas, G.F., Marchesano, F. & Prieto, D. Membranes in AdS4 orientifold vacua and their Weak Gravity Conjecture. J. High Energ. Phys. 2022, 34 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP09(2022)034
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP09(2022)034