Looijenga's weighted projective space, Tate's algorithm and Mordell-Weil Lattice in F-theory and heterotic string theory

TL;DR

This paper systematically derives weighted projective spaces and spectral covers in F-theory and heterotic string theory using Tate's algorithm, linking geometric structures to physical gauge groups and matter content.

Contribution

It provides a systematic method to obtain weighted projective spaces and spectral covers via Tate's algorithm, connecting geometric and physical aspects in string compactifications.

Findings

Weighted projective spaces can be obtained by blowing-up procedures.

Spectral covers for specific gauge groups are systematically constructed.

The Mordell-Weil lattice explains the relation between singularities and chiral matter.

Abstract

It is now well known that the moduli space of a vector bundle for heterotic string compactifications to four dimensions is parameterized by a set of sections of a weighted projective space bundle of a particular kind, known as Looijenga's weighted projective space bundle. We show that the requisite weighted projective spaces and the Weierstrass equations describing the spectral covers for gauge groups E_N (N=4,...,8) and SU(n+1) (n=1,2,3) can be obtained systematically by a series of blowing-up procedures according to Tate's algorithm, thereby the sections of correct line bundles claimed to arise by Looijenga's theorem can be automatically obtained. They are nothing but the four-dimensional analogue of the set of independent polynomials in the six-dimensional F-theory parameterizing the complex structure, which is further confirmed in the constructions of D_4, A_5, D_6, E_3 and SU(2) x SU(2) bundles. We also explain why we can obtain them in this way by using the structure theorem of the Mordell-Weil lattice, which is also useful for understanding the relation between the singularity and the occurrence of chiral matter in F-theory.