Determine whether additional light states restore supersymmetry in an F-theory limit

Determine whether the additional states that become light as an elliptic fiber collapses restore supersymmetry in the proposed limit from supersymmetric three-dimensional theories to nonsupersymmetric four-dimensional vacua, or whether more general backgrounds can realize supersymmetry breaking.

Background

The paper suggests applying the local G2-structure construction to Witten’s proposal for obtaining nonsupersymmetric four-dimensional vacua from supersymmetric three-dimensional theories. Degenerating torus fibrations with monodromy could lead to such limits, but the behavior of states becoming light at the degeneration is unresolved.

References

A crucial question is whether the additional states becoming light as the elliptic fiber collapses restore supersymmetry, as happens in certain previously studied Spin(7) constructions in the weak-coupling, infinite-interval limit, or whether more general backgrounds can realize this scenario.

— A real superpotential for M-theory on eight-manifolds  (2610.12439 - Ashmore et al., 8 Oct 2026) in Section 6, Discussion