A naturally light dilaton and a small cosmological constant

Area of Science:

• Theoretical Physics
• High-Energy Physics
• String Theory

Background:

• Supersymmetry (SUSY) is a theoretical framework often used to address the hierarchy problem.
• Conformal field theories (CFTs) are fundamental in understanding critical phenomena and quantum field theory.
• Holographic principles provide a bridge between quantum gravity and quantum field theory.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a non-supersymmetric theory that naturally incorporates a light dilaton.
• To explore holographic realizations of spontaneously broken conformal symmetry.
• To investigate the suppression of dilaton mass and cosmological constants in a specific theoretical framework.

Main Methods:

• Utilizing a 5D holographic description of a conformal theory.
• Perturbing the conformal theory with a nearly marginal operator that develops a condensate.
• Solving the scalar-gravity system to find an exact solution.

Main Results:

• A stable minimum is achieved at small scales, suppressing the dilaton mass squared by a factor of [Formula: see text].
• The cosmological constant in this sector is also suppressed by [Formula: see text], making it smaller than in broken SUSY theories.
• An exact solution to the scalar-gravity system is found, representing a new holographic realization of spontaneously broken conformal symmetry.

Conclusions:

• The proposed non-supersymmetric theory successfully generates a naturally light dilaton.
• The theory provides a holographic realization of spontaneously broken conformal symmetry, even with deviations from Anti-de Sitter space.
• The findings offer an alternative to supersymmetric approaches for addressing certain theoretical challenges.