On marginal deformations of (0,2) non-linear sigma models

TL;DR

This paper investigates the first-order marginal deformations of (0,2) superconformal field theories describing heterotic string compactifications, clarifying their structure in Calabi-Yau and flux vacua contexts.

Contribution

It provides a detailed description of first-order deformations of (0,2) non-linear sigma models at tree-level, linking them to massless scalars in heterotic string theory.

Findings

Deformations correspond to massless gauge-neutral scalars.

Clarifies the structure of heterotic Calabi-Yau and flux vacua deformations.

Provides a framework for analyzing (0,2) SCFT deformations.

Abstract

An N=1, d=4 supersymmetric compactification of the perturbative heterotic string is described by a d=2 (0,2) superconformal field theory. The first-order marginal deformations of the internal (0,2) SCFT are in 1 to 1 correspondence with massless gauge-neutral scalars in the spacetime theory. Working at tree-level in the alpha' expansion, we describe these first order deformations for SCFTs with a (0,2) non-linear sigma model description. Our results clarify the structure of deformations of heterotic Calabi-Yau compactifications and more general heterotic flux vacua.