Asymmetric Gepner Models (Revisited)

TL;DR

This paper revisits asymmetric Gepner models, extending their analysis to (0,2) spectra with Standard Model features, revealing patterns in fractional charges, family numbers, and gauge groups, with implications for string phenomenology.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of (0,2) heterotic string models based on Gepner constructions, identifying new spectral properties and classifying models by family number divisibility.

Findings

Most models contain massless fractional charges, often half-integer or vector-like.

Models tend to have fewer families compared to 1989 results, with no new three-family models found.

Models fall into two classes based on whether the number of families is divisible by three.

Abstract

We reconsider a class of heterotic string theories studied in 1989, based on tensor products of N=2 minimal models with asymmetric simple current invariants. We extend this analysis from (2,2) and (1,2) spectra to (0,2) spectra with SO(10) broken to the Standard Model. In the latter case the spectrum must contain fractionally charged particles. We find that in nearly all cases at least some of them are massless. However, we identify a large subclass where the fractional charges are at worst half-integer, and often vector-like. The number of families is very often reduced in comparison to the 1989 results, but there are no new tensor combinations yielding three families. All tensor combinations turn out to fall into two classes: those where the number of families is always divisible by three, and those where it is never divisible by three. We find an empirical rule to determine the class, which appears to extend beyond minimal N=2 tensor products. We observe that distributions of physical quantities such as the number of families, singlets and mirrors have an interesting tendency towards smaller values as the gauge groups approaches the Standard Model. We compare our results with an analogous class of free fermionic models. This displays similar features, but with less resolution.Finally we present a complete scan of the three family models based on the triply-exceptional combination (1,16*,16*,16*) identified originally by Gepner. We find 1220 distinct three family spectra in this case, forming 610 mirror pairs. About half of them have the gauge group SU(3) x SU(2)_L x SU(2)_R x U(1)^5, the theoretical minimum, and many others are trinification models.