The tadpole conjecture in the interior of moduli space

Abstract

We revisit moduli stabilization on Calabi-Yau manifolds with a discrete symmetry. Invariant fluxes allow for a truncation to a symmetric locus in complex structure moduli space and hence drastically reduce the moduli stabilization problem in its dimensionality. This makes them an ideal testing ground for the tadpole conjecture. For a large class of fourfolds, we show that an invariant flux with non-zero on-shell superpotential on the symmetric locus necessarily stabilizes at least 60% of the complex structure moduli. In case this invariant flux induces a relatively small tadpole, it is thus possible to bypass the bound predicted by the tadpole conjecture at these special loci. As an example, we discuss a Calabi-Yau hypersurface with h^3,1 = 3878 and show that we can stabilize at least 4932 real moduli with a flux that induces M2-charge N_flux = 3.