Complex structure moduli of a Calabi-Yau threefold in $N=1$ supersymmetric heterotic compactifications can be stabilized by holomorphic vector bundles. The stabilized moduli are determined by a computation of Atiyah class. In this paper, we study how this mechanism work in the context of elliptically fibered Calabi-Yau manifolds where complex structure moduli space contains two kinds of moduli, ones from base and ones from fibration. With spectral cover bundles, we find three types of situations when holomorphicity of bundles is determined by algebraic cycles supported on special choice of complex structure, which allows us to stabilize both of these two moduli. We present concrete examples for each type and develop practical tools to analyze the stabilized moduli. Finally, by checking the holomorphicity of the four-flux and/or local Higgs bundle data in F-theory, we briefly study the dual complex structure moduli stabilization scenarios.
We analyze heterotic line bundle models on elliptically fibered Calabi-Yau three-folds over weak Fano bases. In order to facilitate Wilson line breaking to the standard model group, we focus on elliptically fibered three-folds with a second section and a freely-acting involution. Specifically, we consider toric weak Fano surfaces as base manifolds and identify six such manifolds with the required properties. The requisite mathematical tools for the construction of line bundle models on these spaces, including the calculation of line bundle cohomology, are developed. A computer scan leads to mo…
The Mordell-Weil group of an elliptically fibered Calabi-Yau threefold X contains information about the abelian sector of the six-dimensional theory obtained by compactifying F-theory on X. After examining features of the abelian anomaly coefficient matrix and U(1) charge quantization conditions of general F-theory vacua, we study Calabi-Yau threefolds with Mordell-Weil rank-one as a first step towards understanding the features of the Mordell-Weil group of threefolds in more detail. In particular, we generate an interesting class of F-theory models with U(1) gauge symmetry that have matter wi…
The Hodge numbers of generic elliptically fibered Calabi-Yau threefolds over toric base surfaces fill out the "shield" structure previously identified by Kreuzer and Skarke. The connectivity structure of these spaces and bounds on the Hodge numbers are illuminated by considerations from F-theory and the minimal model program. In particular, there is a rigorous bound on the Hodge number h_{21} <= 491 for any elliptically fibered Calabi-Yau threefold. The threefolds with the largest known Hodge numbers are associated with a sequence of blow-ups of toric bases beginning with the Hirzebruch surfac…
We determine several classes of smooth complex projective surfaces on which Zariski decomposition can be combined with vanishing theorems to yield cohomology formulae for all line bundles. The obtained formulae express cohomologies in terms of divisor class intersections, and are adapted to the decomposition of the effective cone into Zariski chambers. In particular, we show this occurs on generalised del Pezzo surfaces, toric surfaces, and K3 surfaces. In the second part we use these surface results to derive formulae for all line bundle cohomology on a simple class of elliptically fibered Ca…
We carry out a systematic study of a class of 6D F-theory models and associated Calabi-Yau threefolds that are constructed using base surfaces with a generalization of toric structure. In particular, we determine all smooth surfaces with a structure invariant under a single C^* action (sometimes called "T-varieties" in the mathematical literature) that can act as bases for an elliptic fibration with section of a Calabi-Yau threefold. We identify 162,404 distinct bases, which include as a subset the previously studied set of strictly toric bases. Calabi-Yau threefolds constructed in this fashio…
We study four-dimensional heterotic flux vacua with N=2 spacetime supersymmetry. A worldsheet perspective is used to clarify quantization conditions associated to the fluxes and the constraints these place on the moduli spaces of resulting compactifications. We propose that these vacua fit naturally in the context of heterotic/IIA duality as heterotic duals to compactifications on K3-fibered but not elliptically fibered Calabi-Yau three-folds. We present some examples of such potential dual pairs.
We consider heterotic target space dual (0,2) GLSMs on elliptically fibered Calabi-Yau manifolds. In this context, each half of the "dual" heterotic theories must in turn have an F-theory dual. Moreover, the apparent relationship between two heterotic compactifications seen in (0,2) heterotic target space dual pairs should, in principle, induce some putative correspondence between the dual F-theory geometries. It has previously been conjectured in the literature that (0,2) target space duality might manifest in F-theory as multiple K3-fibrations of the same elliptically fibered Calabi-Yau mani…
Heterotic string compactifications on a $K3$ surface $\mathfrak{S}$ depend on a choice of hyperkähler metric, anti-self-dual gauge connection and Kalb-Ramond flux, parametrized by hypermultiplet scalars. The metric on hypermultiplet moduli space is in principle computable within the $(0,2)$ superconformal field theory on the heterotic string worldsheet, although little is known about it in practice. Using duality with type II strings compactified on a Calabi-Yau threefold, we predict the form of the quaternion-Kähler metric on hypermultiplet moduli space when $\mathfrak{S}$ is elliptically fib…
In this study, four-dimensional $N=1$ F-theory models with multiple U(1) gauge group factors are constructed. A class of rational elliptic 4-folds, which we call as "$\frac{1}{2}$Calabi-Yau 4-folds," is introduced, and we construct the elliptically fibered 4-folds by utilizing them. This yields a novel approach for building families of elliptically fibered Calabi-Yau 4-folds with positive Mordell-Weil ranks. The introduced $\frac{1}{2}$Calabi-Yau 4-folds possess the characteristic property wherein the sum of the ranks of the singularity type and the Mordell-Weil group is always equal to six. T…
University of Illinois at Chicago（伊利诺伊大学芝加哥分校）；University of California San Diego（加州大学圣地亚哥分校）；Duke University（杜克大学）；Stony Brook University（石溪大学）；Princeton University（普林斯顿大学）；Università degli Studi di Milano（米兰大学）；Tsinghua University（清华大学）；University of Maryland（马里兰大学）
The Yukawa textures of effective heterotic models are studied by using singular spectral data. One advantage of this approach is that it is possible to dissect the cohomologies of the bundles into smaller parts and identify the pieces that contain the zero modes, which can potentially have non-zero Yukawa couplings. Another advantage is the manifest relationship between the Yukawa textures in heterotic models and local F-theory models in terms of fields living in bulk or localized inside the 7-branes. We only work with Weierstrass elliptically fibered Calabi-Yau manifolds here. The idea for ge…
Using F-theory/heterotic duality, we describe a framework for analyzing non-geometric T2-fibered heterotic compactifications to six- and four-dimensions. Our results suggest that among T2-fibered heterotic string vacua, the non-geometric compactifications are just as typical as the geometric ones. We also construct four-dimensional solutions which have novel type IIB and M-theory dual descriptions. These duals are non-geometric with three- and four-form fluxes not of (2,1) or (2,2) Hodge type, respectively, and yet preserve at least N=1 supersymmetry.
We study the existence and properties of birationally equivalent models for elliptically fibered varieties. In particular these have either the structure of Mori fiber spaces or, assuming some standard conjectures, minimal models with a Zariski decomposition compatible with the elliptic fibration. We prove relations between the birational invariants of the elliptically fibered variety, the base of the fibration and of its Jacobian.
We study F-theory duals of heterotic line bundle models on elliptically fibered Calabi-Yau threefolds. These models necessarily contain NS5-branes which are geometrised in the dual F-theory compactifications. We initiate a systematic study of the correspondence between various configurations of NS5-branes and the dual geometries in F-theory and perform several checks of the duality. Furthermore, we discuss the singular transitions between different configurations of NS5-branes.
We study aspects of an equivalent relation of the charge completeness in six-dimensional (6D) $\mathcal{N}=(1,0)$ supergravity theory and a standard assumption on the global structure of the gauge group involving F-theory geometry, recently proved by Morrison and Taylor. We constructed and analyzed a novel 6D supergravity theory, realized as F-theory, on an elliptically fibered Calabi-Yau 3-fold. Our construction yields a novel 6D theory with Mordell-Weil torsion $\mathbb{Z}_4\oplus\mathbb{Z}_4$. Furthermore, we deduce the gauge group and matter fields arising in the 6D F-theory model on the c…
In this study, we introduce a new class of rational elliptic 3-folds, which we refer to as "1/2 Calabi-Yau 3-folds". We construct elliptically fibered Calabi-Yau 3-folds by utilizing these rational elliptic 3-folds. The construction yields a novel approach to build elliptically fibered Calabi-Yau 3-folds of various Mordell-Weil ranks. Our construction of Calabi-Yau 3-folds can be considered as a three-dimensional generalization of the operation of gluing pairs of 1/2 K3 surfaces to yield elliptic K3 surfaces. From one to seven $U(1)$s form in six-dimensional $N=1$ F-theory on the constructed C…
In previous work, we have shown that elliptic fibrations with two sections, or Mordell-Weil rank one, can always be mapped birationally to a Weierstrass model of a certain form, namely, the Jacobian of a $\mathbb{P}^{112}$ model. Most constructions of elliptically fibered Calabi-Yau manifolds with two sections have been carried out assuming that the image of this birational map was a "minimal" Weierstrass model. In this paper, we show that for some elliptically fibered Calabi-Yau manifolds with Mordell-Weil rank-one, the Jacobian of the $\mathbb{P}^{112}$ model is not minimal. Said another way…
We present models of heterotic compactification on Calabi-Yau threefolds and compute the non-perturbative superpotential for vector bundle moduli. The key feature of these models is that the threefolds, which are elliptically fibered over del Pezzo surfaces, have homology classes with a unique holomorphic, isolated genus-zero curve. Using the spectral cover construction, we present vector bundles for which we can explicitly calculate the Pfaffians associated with string instantons on these curves. These are shown to be non-zero, thus leading to a non-vanishing superpotential in the 4D effectiv…
In this work we study F-theory compactifications on elliptically fibered Calabi-Yau n-folds which have $\mathbb{P}^1$-fibered base manifolds. Such geometries, which we study in both 4- and 6-dimensions, are both ubiquitous within the set of Calabi-Yau manifolds and play a crucial role in heterotic/F-theory duality. We discuss the most general formulation of $\mathbb{P}^1$-bundles of this type, as well as fibrations which degenerate at higher codimension loci. In the course of this study, we find a number of new phenomena. For example, in both 4- and 6-dimensions we find transitions whereby the…
To understand in detail the contribution of a world-sheet instanton to the superpotential in a heterotic string compactification, one has to understand the moduli dependence (bundle and complex structure moduli) of the one-loop determinants from the fluctuations, which accompany the classical exponential contribution (involving Kähler moduli) when evaluating the world-volume partition function. Here we use techniques to describe geometrically these Pfaffians for spectral bundles over rational base curves in elliptically fibered Calabi-Yau threefolds, and provide a (partially exhaustive) list o…
To fix the bundle moduli of a heterotic compactification one has to understand the Pfaffian one-loop prefactor of the classical instanton contribution. For compactifications on elliptically fibered Calabi-Yau spaces X this can be made explicit for spectral bundles and world-sheet instantons supported on rational base curves b: one can express the Pfaffian in a closed algebraic form as a polynomial, or it may be understood as a theta-function expression. We elucidate the connection between these two points of view via the respective perception of the relevant spectral curve, related to its extr…
In this work we consider quotients of elliptically fibered Calabi-Yau threefolds by freely acting discrete groups and the associated physics of F-theory compactifications on such backgrounds. The process of quotienting a Calabi-Yau geometry produces not only new genus one fibered manifolds, but also new effective 6-dimensional physics. These theories can be uniquely characterized by the much simpler covering space geometry and the symmetry action on it. We use this method to construct examples of F-theory models with an array of discrete gauge groups and non-trivial monodromies, including an e…
We present how to construct elliptically fibered K3 surfaces via Weierstrass models which can be parametrized in terms of Wilson lines in the dual heterotic string theory. We work with a subset of reflexive polyhedras that admit two fibers whose moduli spaces contain the ones of the $E_{8}\times E_{8}$ or $\frac{Spin(32)}{\mathbb{Z}_{2}}$ heterotic theory compactified on a two torus without Wilson lines. One can then interpret the additional moduli as a particular Wilson line content in the heterotic strings. A convenient way to find such polytopes is to use graphs of polytopes where links are…
In this work we review a systematic, algorithmic construction of dual heterotic/F-theory geometries corresponding to 4-dimensional, N = 1 supersymmetric compactifications. We look in detail at a class of well-defined Calabi-Yau fourfolds for which the standard formulation of the duality map appears to fail, leading to dual heterotic geometry which appears naively incompatible with the spectral cover construction of vector bundles. In the simplest class of examples the F-theory background consists of a generically singular elliptically fibered Calabi-Yau fourfold with E7 symmetry. The vector bu…
We extend the dictionary between the BPS spectrum of Heterotic strings and the one of F-/M-theory compactifications on $K3$ fibered Calabi-Yau 3-folds to cases with higher rank non-Abelian gauge groups and in particular to dual pairs between Heterotic CHL orbifolds and compactifications on Calabi-Yau 3-folds with a compatible genus one fibration. We show how to obtain the new supersymmetric index purely from the Calabi-Yau geometry by reconstructing the Noether-Lefschetz generators, which are vector-valued modular forms. There is an isomorphism between the latter objects and vector-valued latt…
Under heterotic/F-theory duality it was argued that a wide class of heterotic five-branes is mapped into the geometry of an F-theory compactification manifold. In four-dimensional compactifications this identifies a five-brane wrapped on a curve in the base of an elliptically fibered Calabi-Yau threefold with a specific F-theory Calabi-Yau fourfold containing the blow-up of the five-brane curve. We argue that this duality can be reformulated by first constructing a non-Calabi-Yau heterotic threefold by blowing up the curve of the five-brane into a divisor with five-brane flux. Employing hetero…
We systematically analyze a broad class of dual heterotic and F-theory models that give four-dimensional supergravity theories, and compare the geometric constraints on the two sides of the duality. Specifically, we give a complete classification of models where the heterotic theory is compactified on a smooth Calabi-Yau threefold that is elliptically fibered with a single section and carries smooth irreducible vector bundles, and the dual F-theory model has a corresponding threefold base that has the form of a P^1 bundle. We formulate simple conditions for the geometry on the F-theory side to…
We review here some aspects of our recent works about the geometric engineering of heterotic little string theories using F-theory. Building on the seminal work by Aspinwall and Morrison as well as Intrilligator and Blum, we solve some longstanding open questions thanks to recent progress in our understanding of 6D (1,0) theories and their generalized symmetries. On the geometry side, these systems correspond to non-compact elliptically fibered Calabi-Yau varieties that must admit the structure of an elliptic K3 fibration. From fiberwise F-theory/Heterotic duality the K3 plays a central role -…
We explore 6-dimensional compactifications of F-theory exhibiting (2,0) superconformal theories coupled to gravity that include discretely charged superconformal matter. Beginning with F-theory geometries with Abelian gauge fields and superconformal sectors, we provide examples of Higgsing transitions which break the $U(1)$ gauge symmetry to a discrete remnant in which the matter fields are also non-trivially coupled to a (2,0) SCFT. In the compactification background this corresponds to a geometric transition linking two fibered Calabi-Yau geometries defined over a singular base complex surfa…
We study the existence of realistic heterotic vacua on a new Abelian surface fibered Calabi-Yau threefold X with Z_8 x Z_8 fundamental group. Our main result is a no-go theorem, which says that (under mild assumptions) there is no stable holomorphic vector bundle on X satisfying the constraints required by global consistency of the heterotic vacuum and phenomenology. To prove the theorem we explore in some detail the Fourier-Mukai transform of vector bundles on Abelian surface fibrations.
F-theory compactified on singular, elliptically fibered Calabi-Yau five-folds gives rise to two-dimensional gauge theories preserving N=(0,2) supersymmetry. In this paper we initiate the study of such compactifications and determine the dictionary between the geometric data of the elliptic fibration and the 2d gauge theory such as the matter content in terms of (0,2) superfields and their supersymmetric couplings. We study this setup both from a gauge-theoretic point of view, in terms of the partially twisted 7-brane theory, and provide a global geometric description based on the structure of …
