Journal of High Energy Physics (Nov 2024)

Stability of axion-saxion wormholes

  • T. Hertog,
  • S. Maenaut,
  • B. Missoni,
  • R. Tielemans,
  • T. Van Riet

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP11(2024)151
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 2024, no. 11
pp. 1 – 30

Abstract

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Abstract We reconsider the perturbative stability of Euclidean axion wormholes. The quadratic action that governs linear perturbations is derived directly in Euclidean gravity. We demonstrate explicitly that a stability analysis in which one treats the axion as a normal two-form gauge field is equivalent to one performed in the Hodge-dual formulation, where one considers the axion as a scalar with a wrong-sign kinetic term. Both analyses indicate that axion wormholes are perturbatively stable, even in the presence of a massless dilaton, or saxion, field that couples to the axion.

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