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PHYSICS

Found: A Quadrillion Ways for String Theory to Make Our


Universe
Stemming from the “F-theory” branch of string theory, each solution replicates key features of the
standard model of particle physics

By Anil Ananthaswamy on March 28, 2019

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Physicists
A D V E R Twho
I S E Mhave
E N T been roaming the “landscape” of string theory—the space of zillions

and zillions of mathematical solutions of the theory, where each solution provides the
kinds of equations physicists need to describe reality—have stumbled upon a subset of
such equations that have the same set of matter particles as exists in our universe.

But this is no small subset: there are at least a quadrillion such solutions, making it the
largest such set ever found in string theory.

According to string theory, all particles and fundamental forces arise from the
vibrational
This states
is your last ofarticle.
free tiny strings. For mathematical consistency, these strings vibrate in
10 di i l ti A df i t ith f ili d i f
10-dimensional spacetime. And for consistency with our familiar everyday experience of
the We use cookies
universe, with to spatial dimensions and the dimension of time, the additional six
three
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dimensions are content and
“compactified” so as to be undetectable.
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Different compactifications lead to different solutions. In string theory, a “solution”


implies a vacuum of spacetime that is governed by Einstein’s theory of gravity coupled to
a quantum field theory. Each solution describes a unique universe, with its own set of
particles, fundamental forces and other such defining properties.

Some string theorists have focused their efforts on trying to find ways to connect string
theory to properties of our known, observable universe—particularly the standard model
of particle physics, which describes all known particles and all their mutual forces except
gravity.

Much of this effort has involved a version of string theory in which the strings interact
weakly. However, in the past two decades, a new branch of string theory called F-theory
has allowed physicists to work with strongly interacting, or strongly coupled, strings.

“An intriguing, surprising result is that when the coupling is large, we can start
describing the theory very geometrically,” says Mirjam Cvetic of the University of
Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

This
This is your last
means thatfree article.
string theorists can use algebraic geometry—which uses algebraic
techniques to tackle geometric problems—to analyze the various ways of compactifying
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intoF-theory and coverage
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extra our award-winning
dimensions of advances
to find solutions. in science
Mathematicians have&been
technology.
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independently studying some of the geometric forms that appear in F-theory. “They
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provide
mediausfeatures
physicists
anda to
vast toolkit,” says Ling Lin, also of the University of
analyze our“The
Pennsylvania. traffic. We
geometry is really the key… it is the ‘language’ that makes F-theory
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Now, Cvetic, Lin, James Halverson of Northeastern University in Boston, and their
colleagues have used such techniques to identify a class of solutions with string
vibrational modes that lead to a similar spectrum of fermions (or, particles of matter) as
is described by the standard model—including the property that all fermions come in
three generations (for example, the electron, muon and tau are the three generations of
one type of fermion).

The F-theory solutions found by Cvetic and colleagues have particles that also exhibit
the handedness, or chirality, of the standard model particles. In particle physics lingo,
the solutions reproduce the exact “chiral spectrum” of standard model particles. For
example, the quarks and leptons in these solutions come in left and right-handed
versions, as they do in our universe.

The new work shows that there are at least a quadrillion solutions in which particles
have the same chiral spectrum as the standard model, which is 10 orders of magnitude
moreissolutions
This thanarticle.
your last free had been found within string theory until now. “This is by far the
l td i f t d d d l l ti ” C ti “It’ h i i d
largest domain of standard model solutions,” Cvetic says. “It’s somehow surprising and
We use
actually alsocookies to that it turns out to be in the strongly coupled string theory
rewarding
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regime, where geometry helped us.”
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A quadrillion—while
analytics partners.it’s much, much smaller than the size of the landscape of solutions
Privacy (which
in F-theory Policy at last count was shown to be of the order of 10272,000)—is a

tremendously large number. “And because it’s a tremendously large number, and it gets
something nontrivial in real world particle physics correct, we should take it seriously
and study it further,” Halverson says.

Further study would involve uncovering stronger connections with the particle physics
of the real world. The researchers still have to work out the couplings or interactions
between particles in the F-theory solutions—which again depend on the geometric
details of the compactifications of the extra dimensions.

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It could be that within the space of the quadrillion solutions, there are some with
couplings that could cause the proton to decay within observable timescales. This would
clearly be at odds with the real world, as experiments have yet to see any sign of protons
decaying. Alternatively, physicists could search for solutions that realize the spectrum of
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standard model particles that preserve a mathematical symmetry called R-parity “This
standard model particles that preserve a mathematical symmetry called R parity. This
symmetry
We useforbids
cookiescertain
to proton decay processes and would be very attractive from a
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particle physicscontent
personalize point ofand
view, but is missing in our current models,” Lin says.
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Also,media
the work assumes
features and tosupersymmetry, which means that all the standard model
analyze
particles haveourpartner
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particles. String theory needs this symmetry in order to ensure
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But in orderadvertising
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and theory to tally with the observable universe, the
analytics
symmetry haspartners.
to be broken (much like how a diner’s selection of cutlery and drinking
glassPrivacy
on her Policy
left or right side will “break” the symmetry of the table setting at a round
dinner table). Else, the partner particles would have the same mass as standard model
particles—and that is clearly not the case, since we don’t observe any such partner
particles in our experiments.

Crucially, experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have also shown that
supersymmetry—if it is the correct description of nature—is not broken even at the
energy scales probed by the LHC, given that the LHC has yet to find any supersymmetric
particles.

String theorists think that supersymmetry might be broken only at extremely high
energies that are not within experimental reach anytime soon. “The expectation in string
theory is that high-scale [supersymmetry] breaking, which is fully consistent with LHC
data, is completely possible,” Halverson says. “It requires further analysis to determine
whether or not it happens in our case.”

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Despite
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features and other
to string theorists are approving of the new work. “This is
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definitely our traffic.
a step forward Wein demonstrating that string theory gives rise to many solutions
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the standard model,” says ❯ Cookie
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Taylor of MIT.
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“It’s media,
very nice work,” says
advertising and Cumrun Vafa, one of the developers of F-theory, at Harvard
analytics“The
University. partners.
fact you can arrange the geometry and topology to fit with not only
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equations, but also with the [particle] spectrum that we want, is not trivial. It
works out nicely here.”

But Vafa and Taylor both caution that these solutions are far from matching perfectly
with the standard model. Getting solutions to match exactly with the particle physics of
our world is one of the ultimate goals of string theory. Vafa is among those who think
that, despite the immensity of the landscape of solutions, there exists a unique solution
that matches our universe. “I bet there is exactly one,” he says. But, “to pinpoint this is
not going to be easy.”

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)

Anil Ananthaswamy
Anil Ananthaswamy is the author of The Edge of Physics, The Man Who Wasn't There and, most recently, Through
Two Doors at Once: The Elegant Experiment That Captures the Enigma of Our Quantum Reality.

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