Semilocalized instability of the Kaluza-Klein linear dilaton vacuum

The Kaluza-Klein linear dilaton background of the bosonic string and the Scherk-Schwarz linear dilaton background of the superstring are shown to be unstable to the decay of half of spacetime. The decay proceeds via a condensation of a semilocalized tachyon when the circle is smaller than a critical size, and via a semiclassical instanton process when the circle is larger than the critical size. At criticality the two pictures are related by a duality of the corresponding two-dimensional conformal field theories. This provides a concrete realization of the connection between tachyonic and semiclassical instabilities in closed string theory, and lends strong support to the idea that nonlocalized closed string tachyon condensation leads to the annihilation of spacetime. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.