A stable vacuum of the tachyonic E8 string
Abstract
We consider tachyon condensation in unstable ten-dimensional heterotic string theory with gauge group E8. In the background of a lightlike linear dilaton rolling to weak coupling, we find an exact solution in which the theory decays to a stable ground state. The final state represents a new, modular-invariant perturbative string theory, tachyon-free in nine spacetime dimensions with a spacelike dilaton gradient, E8 gauge group and no spacetime supersymmetry.
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