Dated Status, Counterexamples, and Falsifiers
Quantum-gravity consistency claims should change status when a hypothesis is tightened, a controlled counterexample appears, or an apparent counterexample leaves the domain. The table below records scientific status at a fixed cutoff; it does not turn lack of a known counterexample into proof.
Required background. Landscape and Swampland Evidence Grammar supplies corpus-level inference; Cobordism Conjecture and Topological-Sector Completeness supplies the final claim family.
Helpful background. Falsifiers, Negative Results, and Counterexamples supplies negative tests; Claim–Evidence Records, Replication, and Retraction Handling supplies update discipline.
Evidence cutoff: 25 July 2026.
Status by fixed variant
Section titled “Status by fixed variant”| Claim | Strongest status at cutoff | Principal evidence | Explicit status-changing result |
|---|---|---|---|
| no exact global symmetry in AdS/CFT | conditional derivation | boundary locality, reconstruction, complete operator spectrum | exact dual satisfying premises with a localized bulk global symmetry |
| charge-lattice completeness | conjectural | string spectra, black-hole and global-symmetry arguments | controlled complete quantum gravity missing an allowed charge sector |
| electric/convex-hull WGC | conjectural, variant-specific | black-hole discharge and broad compactification tests | controlled spectrum violating the fixed normalized variant through its EFT domain |
| asymptotic distance conjecture | conjectural with strong string-limit evidence | infinite-distance classifications and towers | infinite-distance controlled limit with no infinite light tower |
| species cutoff | parametric EFT result under identifiable weak species | loop renormalization and black-hole estimates | regulator-stable weakly coupled counterexample to the scaling |
| universal emergence principle | conjectural | tower-dominated thresholds in special duality frames | arbitrary allowed bare term surviving all proposed UV constraints |
| de Sitter constraints | theorems for restricted classes; universal variants disputed | classical no-go results and string searches | controlled vacuum refuting a precisely stated universal variant |
| 2025 holographic landscape exclusions | conditional, assumption-sensitive preprint claim | brane-worldvolume and future-EFT assumptions | exact dual or controlled construction violating the conclusion while satisfying those assumptions |
| cobordism triviality | conjectural | predicted defects and string examples | complete theory retaining a nontrivial physical bordism superselection charge |
Harlow and Ooguri establish the first row only under their holographic assumptions Harlow and Ooguri 2021. Reviews of the swampland program classify the WGC, distance, and de Sitter families as conjectural and emphasize their variants Palti 2019, van Beest et al. 2022.
First application: build one evidence record
Section titled “First application: build one evidence record”For each row, collect (i) the original formulation, (ii) one independent derivation or review, and (iii) contrary evidence. Assign one of: proved under assumptions, conditionally derived, EFT estimate, conjectural, disputed, or falsified.
For arXiv:2511.15784, the essential premise is that a stable AdS CFT is directly realized as a brane worldvolume theory Bedroya and Steinhardt 2025. Flux backtracking of DGKT proposes a candidate brane singularity but not an established dual Apers, Montero, and Valenzuela 2026. The appropriate status is conditional and assumption-sensitive, not proved or falsified.
Adversarial control: add a counterexample
Section titled “Adversarial control: add a counterexample”Insert a published model advertised as a counterexample. First test every premise: control, dimension, asymptotics, corrections, and the exact conjecture variant. If all hold, the universal statement is falsified. If one fails, narrow the claim transparently; do not redefine it until the example is excluded and then present the narrowed version as unchanged.
Conversely, tightening a conjecture can turn an apparent counterexample into an out-of-domain example, but it also reduces the conclusion’s scope. Downstream summaries must update both status and quantifiers together.
The chapter overview contains the structure diagram and validity and failure diagram. They are embedded there once so that their shared chapter-level context is not repeated on every article.
For the chapter-wide comparison of assumptions, counterevidence, falsifiers, and claim ceilings, see the claim-domain table.
References
Section titled “References”- Apers, Fien, Miguel Montero, and Irene Valenzuela. “Backtracking AdS Flux Vacua.” Journal of High Energy Physics 2026, 3 (2026): 161. DOI.
- Bedroya, Alek, and Paul J. Steinhardt. “Holographic Constraints on the String Landscape.” arXiv:2511.15784v2 [hep-th] (2025). arXiv.
- Harlow, Daniel, and Hirosi Ooguri. “Symmetries in Quantum Field Theory and Quantum Gravity.” Communications in Mathematical Physics 383, 1669–1804 (2021). DOI.
- Palti, Eran. “The Swampland: Introduction and Review.” Fortschritte der Physik 67, 1900037 (2019). DOI. Open PDF.
- van Beest, Marieke, José Calderón-Infante, Delaram Mirfendereski, and Irene Valenzuela. “Lectures on the Swampland Program in String Compactifications.” Physics Reports 989, 1–50 (2022). DOI. Open PDF.