Non-supersymmetric AdS and the Swampland

TL;DR

The authors sharpen the weak gravity conjecture by arguing that force equality is reserved for supersymmetric/BPS states, with broad implications for the existence of non-supersymmetric AdS vacua. They support this claim with diverse string-theoretic evidence, dualities, and dimensional reduction analyses, showing non-BPS states must satisfy a strict inequality. They then argue that non-supersymmetric AdS vacua supported by flux are inherently unstable, effectively ruling out weakly coupled AdS holography with a finite number of matter fields. They also discuss potential caveats for theories with infinite towers of states and highlight significant swampland implications for AdS/CFT and non-supersymmetric holography.

Abstract

We propose to sharpen the weak gravity conjecture by the statement that, except for BPS states in a supersymmetric theory, the gravitational force is strictly weaker than any electric force and provide a number of evidences for this statement. Our conjecture implies that any non-supersymmetric anti-de Sitter vacuum supported by fluxes must be unstable, as is the case for all known attempts at such holographic constructions.