Moduli stabilization and uplifting with dynamically generated F-terms

TL;DR

The work presents a framework where KKLT moduli stabilization is uplifted by dynamically generated F-terms from metastable SUSY breaking (ISS-type) while preserving a TeV-scale gravitino and a small or vanishing cosmological constant. By analyzing supergravity corrections, IR descriptions, and potential AdS minima, the authors argue that the uplift can be achieved with suppressed tunneling to AdS vacua, and they extend the approach to a quantum moduli space scenario as an alternative hidden sector. They derive general tree-level soft-term formulas in this setup and show that, for plausible couplings, the visible-sector soft masses are typically of order the gravitino mass, with possible flavor-blind scenarios if certain couplings are small. The results support manifestly supersymmetric uplifting as a competitive alternative to antibrane-based KKLT uplift, with distinctive implications for soft terms and SUSY phenomenology.

Abstract

We use the F-term dynamical supersymmetry breaking models with metastable vacua in order to uplift the vacuum energy in the KKLT moduli stabilization scenario. The main advantage compared to earlier proposals is the manifest supersymmetric treatment and the natural coexistence of a TeV gravitino mass with a zero cosmological constant. We argue that it is generically difficult to avoid anti de-Sitter supersymmetric minima, however the tunneling rate from the metastable vacuum with zero vacuum energy towards them can be very suppressed. We briefly comment on the properties of the induced soft terms in the observable sector.