Constraints on Meta-stable de Sitter Flux Vacua

We consider flux compactification of type IIB string theory as the orientifold limit of an F-theory on a Calabi-Yau fourfold. We show that when supersymmetry is dominantly broken by the axion-dilaton and the contributions of the F-terms associated with complex structure moduli are small, the Hessian of the flux potential always has tachyonic modes for de Sitter vacua. This implies that there exist no meta-stable de Sitter vacua in this limit. Moreover, we find that the stability requirement imposes a relation between the values of cosmological constant and the scale of supersymmetry breaking for non-supersymmetric anti de Sitter vacua in this limit. The proof is general and does not rely on the details of the geometry of the compact Calabi-Yau internal space. We finally analyze the consequences of these constraints on the statistics of meta-stable de Sitter vacua and address some other related issues.