Fermions and the Swampland

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17 Scopus citations

Abstract

In this note we consider whether there could be Swampland constraints associated to the presence of fermions in the theory. We propose that any fermion must couple to an infinite tower of states, and that the mass scale of this tower, in Planck units, is set by the strength of the Yukawa coupling to the tower. This is a type of fermionic version of the (magnetic) Weak Gravity Conjecture. We also find that supersymmetry plays a natural part in this fermionic realisation, which motivates a further proposal that supersymmetry can only be broken below the scale set by this Yukawa coupling. We perform some preliminary checks in string theory of these ideas.

Original languageEnglish
Article number135617
JournalPhysics Letters, Section B: Nuclear, Elementary Particle and High-Energy Physics
Volume808
DOIs
StatePublished - 10 Sep 2020

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Nuclear and High Energy Physics

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