Torsion and Supersymmetry Breaking

TL;DR

This paper explores how auxiliary fields in type IIB string theory compactifications relate to supersymmetry breaking and nongeometric fluxes, revealing insights into mirror symmetry and nonperturbative effects.

Contribution

It identifies auxiliary fields in hypermultiplets, links flux deformations to nongeometric compactifications, and explains mirror symmetry persistence with fluxes.

Findings

Auxiliary fields parametrize flux-induced deformations.

Nongeometric compactifications are generically global.

Mirror symmetry may hold despite flux-induced symmetry breaking.

Abstract

We identify the auxiliary fields in the hypermultiplets of type IIB string theory compactified on a Calabi-Yau manifold, using a combination of worldsheet and supergravity techniques. The SUSY-breaking squark and gaugino masses in type IIB models depend on these auxiliary fields, which parametrize deformations away from a pure Calabi-Yau compactification to one with NS-NS 3-form flux and SU(3) x SU(3) structure. Worldsheet arguments show that such compactifications are generically globally nongeometric. Our results, combined with earlier results for type IIA compactifications, imply that these deformations are the mirrors of NS-NS 3-form flux, in accord with work from the supergravity point of view. Using the worldsheet current algebra, we explain why mirror symmetry may continue to hold in the presence of fluxes breaking the symmetries (e.g., (2,2) SUSY) on which mirror symmetry is typically taken to depend. Finally, we give evidence that nonperturbative worldsheet effects (such as worldsheet instantons) provide important corrections to the supergravity picture in the presence of auxiliary fields for Kahler moduli.