Fake supersymmetry with tadpole potentials

Abstract

We study tadpole potentials of non-supersymmetric strings, resorting to a first-order formalism known in the literature as fake supersymmetry. We present a detailed analysis for vacua with only gravity and the dilaton, displaying the obstructions that forbid the simplest inclusion of form fluxes. Our focus is on codimension-one vacua, for which we propose a definition of energy that might be suitable for stability arguments. Our findings point to the central role of boundary conditions when supersymmetry is absent or broken.