Counting AdS vacua

A bstract We study the ‘number’ 𝔑( μ ) of AdS vacua with a UV cutoff μ . It has been proposed that this number is finite. We find evidence that 𝔑( μ ) ~ a μ − b as μ → 0 for some constants a and b of O (1) in Planck units that may depend on dimension and the number of supercharges. For this result to hold it is crucial to integrate over the volume of massless and tachyonic directions of AdS which corresponds to the volume of the space of marginal and relevant deformations of the dual CFT. We are led to the surprising prediction that theories with large number of light moduli contribute very little to the volume measure among all theories. We also speculate about the dS case leading to the number of quasi-dS vacua of the order of Λ − α for some O (1) parameter α .

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Publication Details

Journal
Journal of High Energy Physics
Published
2026-08-03
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/jhep08(2026)011
Primary Topic
Black Holes and Theoretical Physics
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00
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article

Counting AdS vacua

Zihni Kaan Baykara, Alessandro Tomasiello, Cumrun Vafa
Journal of High Energy Physics
Black Holes and Theoretical Physics
article

Counting AdS vacua

Zihni Kaan Baykara, Alessandro Tomasiello, Cumrun Vafa
article en

Abstract

A bstract We study the ‘number’ 𝔑( μ ) of AdS vacua with a UV cutoff μ . It has been proposed that this number is finite. We find evidence that 𝔑( μ ) ~ a μ − b as μ → 0 for some constants a and b of O (1) in Planck units that may depend on dimension and the number of supercharges. For this result to hold it is crucial to integrate over the volume of massless and tachyonic directions of AdS which corresponds to the volume of the space of marginal and relevant deformations of the dual CFT. We are led to the surprising prediction that theories with large number of light moduli contribute very little to the volume measure among all theories. We also speculate about the dS case leading to the number of quasi-dS vacua of the order of Λ − α for some O (1) parameter α .

Journal of High Energy PhysicsVol. 2026(8)
Harvard University Press (US), Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Milano Bicocca (IT)
Openalex Percentile: Top 11%
Black Holes and Theoretical Physics
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