UV Completions for Non-Critical Strings

TL;DR

This paper explores the theoretical frameworks governing non-critical string theories derived from compactifications of superstrings on Calabi-Yau manifolds, analyzing their vacua, anomaly cancellation, and supersymmetry breaking.

Contribution

It determines the quasi-topological theories governing 2D vacua of GLSMs from string compactifications and examines anomaly cancellation and supersymmetry breaking mechanisms.

Findings

Identified 8D and 6D quasi-topological theories for string vacua.

Analyzed anomaly cancellation and its impact on supersymmetry.

Studied specific examples like heterotic string embeddings and F-theory clusters.

Abstract

Compactifications of the physical superstring to two dimensions provide a general template for realizing 2D conformal field theories coupled to worldsheet gravity, i.e. non-critical string theories. Motivated by this observation, in this paper we determine the quasi-topological 8D theory which governs the vacua of 2D N = (0,2) gauged linear sigma models (GLSMs) obtained from compactifications of type I and heterotic strings on a Calabi-Yau fourfold. We also determine the quasi-topological 6D theory governing the 2D vacua of intersecting 7-branes in compactifications of F-theory on an elliptically fibered Calabi-Yau fivefold, where matter fields and interaction terms localize on lower-dimensional subspaces, i.e. defect operators. To cancel anomalies / cancel tadpoles, these GLSMs must couple to additional chiral sectors, which in some cases do not admit a known description in terms of a UV GLSM. Additionally, we find that constructing an anomaly free spectrum can sometimes break supersymmetry due to spacetime filling anti-branes. We also study various canonical examples such as the standard embedding of heterotic strings on a Calabi-Yau fourfold and F-theoretic "rigid clusters" with no local deformation moduli of the elliptic fibration.