Supersymmetry, Ricci Flat Manifolds and the String Landscape

Abstract

A longstanding question in superstring/$M$ theory is does it predict supersymmetry below the string scale? We formulate and discuss a necessary condition for this to be true; this is the mathematical conjecture that all stable, compact Ricci flat manifolds have special holonomy in dimensions below eleven. Almost equivalent is the proposal that the landscape of all geometric, stable, string/$M$ theory compactifications to Minkowski spacetime (at leading order) are supersymmetric. For simply connected manifolds, we collect together a number of physically relevant mathematical results, emphasising some key outstanding problems and perhaps less well known results. For non-simply connected, non-supersymmetric Ricci flat manifolds we demonstrate that many cases suffer from generalised Witten bubble of nothing instabilities.