Spin-Statistics Violations from Heterotic String Worldsheet Instantons

TL;DR

This paper investigates the potential for worldsheet instantons in heterotic string theory to cause spin-statistics violations, which could serve as unique nonperturbative signatures of string theory and compactification effects.

Contribution

It demonstrates the absence of instanton solutions in a simple model and suggests that more complex models might produce such solutions, with possible experimental implications.

Findings

No instanton solutions in the simplest model

Conjecture that complex models may have solutions

Potential experimental detection of effects

Abstract

In this paper we consider the role that worldsheet instantons in the heterotic string could play in spin-statistics violations. Such violations are nonperturbative in the string tension and so would not appear in the spacetime effective action, producing a unique signature of string theory and the details of compactification. By performing a Bogomol'nyi transformation it is shown that there are no instanton solutions in the simplest model proposed by Harvey and Liu, but it is conjectured that more sophisticated models may yield solutions. If such instantons do exist, their effect might be measured by upcoming experiments.