Dark Dimension With (Little) Strings Attached

Abstract

A relation between dark energy and the scale of new physics in weakly coupled string theory is motivated. This mixing between infrared and ultraviolet physics leads to a unique corner for real-world phenomenology: barring fine-tunings, the authors are naturally led to the “dark dimension” scenario, a single mesoscopic extra dimension of micron size with the standard model localized on D-branes. Our explicit top-down worldsheet derivation establishes it on a more solid grounding. Allowing some fine-tuning, such that the vacuum energy only arise at higher orders in string perturbation theory, the “little string theory” scenario with a very weakly coupled string is an alternative possibility. In this case, the string scale lies at the edge of detectability of particle accelerators.