Metastable String Vacua

Abstract

We argue that tachyon-free type I string vacua with supersymmetry breaking in the open sector at the string scale can be interpreted, via S and T-duality arguments, as metastable vacua of supersymmetric type I superstring. The dynamics of the process can be partially captured via nucleation of brane-antibrane pairs out of the non-supersymmetric vacuum and subsequent tachyon condensation.