4D de Sitter from String Theory via 6D Supergravity

We obtain de Sitter (dS) solutions from controlled string-theory constructions. We review how minimal gauged chiral 6D supergravity evades standard dS no-go theorems by having a positive scalar potential and describe the known 4D classical dS, AdS and Minkowski solutions. Grimm and collaborators recently found a related 6D supergravity by direct F-theory Calabi-Yau flux compactifications and we construct classical 4D maximally symmetric solutions for this 6D supergravity. These provide explicit solutions of the higher-dimensional field equations corresponding to dS, AdS and flat spacetimes in 4D, allowing interesting hierarchies of scales. We show how the singularities of these solutions are consistent with the back-reaction of two space-filling 4D brane-like sources situated within the extra dimensions and infer some of the properties of these sources using the formalism of point particle effective field theory (PPEFT), showing the sources are not vanilla objects like D branes. These tools relate the near-source asymptotic forms of bulk fields to source properties and have been extensively tested for more prosaic physical systems involving the back-reaction of small sources, such as the dependence of atomic energy levels on nuclear properties. We use it to determine the tension of the brane-like sources (that can be positive) and its derivatives. We verify that the solutions are in the weak coupling/large volume regime required to neglect quantum and $\alpha'$ effects.