F-theory and Dark Energy

Abstract: We discuss recent progress in understanding 4D vacua obtained from F-theory on Spin(7) backgrounds. Such compactifications provide a stringy mechanism to maintain a mild version of supersymmetry in which the ground state is annihilated by two supercharges, but all finite energy excitations experience broken supersymmetry. This leads to a split mass spectrum for superpartners, but with vanishing zero point energies. Based on work with C. Lawrie, L. Lin, and G. Zoccarato, hep-th/1811.01959.