Stable vacua for tachyonic strings

In addition to the familiar string theories with spacetime supersymmetry, there exist a number of nonsupersymmetric ten-dimensional superstrings. Nearly all of these theories have closed string tachyons, indicating a misidentification of the vacuum around which they are to be quantized. In this work, we identify (meta)stable vacua for all known tachyonic superstrings. These vacua are all lower dimensional, with most of them being familiar two-dimensional string theories. However, there are also intriguing examples of solutions in dimensions 6, 8, and 9, with respective gauge groups E-7 x E-7, SU(16), and E-8. These special vacua have positive vacuum energy and no moduli.

Automated summary

In this study, stable vacua for all known tachyonic superstrings were identified, the majority of which are familiar two-dimensional string theories. However, there are also intriguing examples of solutions in dimensions 6, 8, and 9 with respective gauge groups E-7 x E-7, SU(16), and E-8, showing positive vacuum energy and no moduli.