Comments on classical AdS flux vacua with scale separation

AdS flux vacua with a parametric separation between the AdS and KK scales have been conjectured to be in the Swampland. We study flux compactifications of massive IIA supergravity with O6 planes which are claimed to allow moduli-stabilised and scale separated AdS(3) and AdS(4) vacua at arbitrary weak coupling and large volume. A recent refinement of the AdS Distance Conjecture is shown to be inconsistent with this class of AdS(3) vacua because the requisite discrete higher form symmetries are absent. We further perform a tree-level study of non-perturbative decays for the nonsupersymmetric versions of the AdS(3) solutions, and find that the vacua are stable within this approximation. Finally, we provide an initial investigation of the would-be dual CFT(2)s and CFT(3)s. We study roughly a dozen different models and find for all AdS(4) DGKT-type vacua that the dual operators to the lightest scalars have integer dimensions. For the putative CFT2 dual theories of the AdS(3) vacua we find no integer dimensions for the operators.

Automated summary

This study investigates the flux compactifications of massive IIA supergravity with O6 planes, examining the properties of AdS(3) and AdS(4) vacua and the potential dual CFT(2) and CFT(3) theories. Results show stability of AdS(3) vacua and the absence of integer dimensions for operators in the putative CFT2 dual theories.