pith. sign in

Computational complexity of the landscape I

2 Pith papers cite this work. Polarity classification is still indexing.

2 Pith papers citing it
abstract

We study the computational complexity of the physical problem of finding vacua of string theory which agree with data, such as the cosmological constant, and show that such problems are typically NP hard. In particular, we prove that in the Bousso-Polchinski model, the problem is NP complete. We discuss the issues this raises and the possibility that, even if we were to find compelling evidence that some vacuum of string theory describes our universe, we might never be able to find that vacuum explicitly. In a companion paper, we apply this point of view to the question of how early cosmology might select a vacuum.

citation-role summary

background 2

citation-polarity summary

fields

hep-th 2

years

2026 2

verdicts

UNVERDICTED 2

roles

background 2

polarities

background 2

representative citing papers

Small Vacuum Energy and Tunneling in a Modified Bousso-Polchinski Model

hep-th · 2026-05-06 · unverdicted · novelty 6.0

In a wafer-modified Bousso-Polchinski model, 99.95% of the 532 million Calabi-Yau fourfold configurations in the Schöller-Skarke database allow vacuum energy spacings of 10^{-120} or smaller, with membrane nucleation transitions dominated by giant flux leaps under thin-wall approximations.

What to do with a Ricci-flat Calabi--Yau metric?

hep-th · 2026-05-22 · unverdicted · novelty 2.0

A roadmap paper describing potential applications of numerical Ricci-flat Calabi-Yau metrics to heterotic string phenomenology and mathematical questions in special geometry.

citing papers explorer

Showing 2 of 2 citing papers.

  • Small Vacuum Energy and Tunneling in a Modified Bousso-Polchinski Model hep-th · 2026-05-06 · unverdicted · none · ref 24

    In a wafer-modified Bousso-Polchinski model, 99.95% of the 532 million Calabi-Yau fourfold configurations in the Schöller-Skarke database allow vacuum energy spacings of 10^{-120} or smaller, with membrane nucleation transitions dominated by giant flux leaps under thin-wall approximations.

  • What to do with a Ricci-flat Calabi--Yau metric? hep-th · 2026-05-22 · unverdicted · none · ref 173 · internal anchor

    A roadmap paper describing potential applications of numerical Ricci-flat Calabi-Yau metrics to heterotic string phenomenology and mathematical questions in special geometry.