Emergence of $R^4$-terms in M-theory

Abstract

It has been recently suggested that the strong Emergence Proposal is realized in M-theory limits by integrating out all light towers of states with a typical mass scale not larger than the species scale, i.e. the eleventh dimensional Planck mass. Within the BPS sector, these are transverse $M2$- and $M5$-branes, that can be wrapped and particle-like, carrying Kaluza-Klein momentum along the compact directions. We provide additional evidence for this picture by revisiting and investigating further the computation of $R^4$-interactions in M-theory \`a la Green-Gutperle-Vanhove. A central aspect is a novel UV-regularization of Schwinger-like integrals, whose actual meaning and power we clarify by first applying it to string perturbation theory. We consider then toroidal compactifications of M-theory and provide evidence that integrating out all light towers of states via Schwinger-like integrals thus regularized yields the complete result for $R^4$-interactions. In particular, this includes terms that are tree-level, one-loop and space-time instanton corrections from the weakly coupled point of view. Finally, we comment on the conceptual difference of our approach to earlier closely related work by Kiritsis-Pioline and Obers-Pioline, leading to a correspondence between two types of constrained Eisenstein series.