Analytics of type IIB flux vacua and their mass spectra

Abstract

We analyze the tree-level potential of type IIB flux compactifications in warped Calabi-Yau orientifolds, in regions of weak coupling and moderately large complex structure. In this regime, one may approximate the flux-induced superpotential W by a polynomial on the axio-dilaton and complex structure fields, and a significant fraction of vacua corresponds to a quadratic W. In this quadratic case, we argue that vacua fall into three classes, for which one can push the analytic description of their features. In particular, we provide analytic expressions for the vacuum expectation values and flux-induced masses of the axio-dilaton and complex structure fields in a large subclass of vacua, independently of the Calabi-Yau and the number of moduli. We show that supersymmetric vacua always contain flat directions, at least at this level of approximation. Our findings allow to generate vast ensembles of flux vacua in specific Calabi-Yau geometries, as we illustrate in a particular example.