Triples, Fluxes, and Strings

TL;DR

This paper explores the complex landscape of string compactifications with sixteen supersymmetries, revealing new moduli space components, novel singularities, and potential dualities across various string and M/F theory frameworks.

Contribution

It identifies new components in the string moduli space, including frozen singularities and conjectured dualities, expanding understanding of compactifications with fluxes and singular geometries.

Findings

Discovery of new moduli space components.

Identification of frozen singularities in M theory.

Proposal of novel dualities between different geometries.

Abstract

We study string compactifications with sixteen supersymmetries. The moduli space for these compactifications becomes quite intricate in lower dimensions, partly because there are many different irreducible components. We focus primarily, but not exclusively, on compactifications to seven or more dimensions. These vacua can be realized in a number ways: the perturbative constructions we study include toroidal compactifications of the heterotic/type I strings, asymmetric orbifolds, and orientifolds. In addition, we describe less conventional M and F theory compactifications on smooth spaces. The last class of vacua considered are compactifications on singular spaces with non-trivial discrete fluxes. We find a number of new components in the string moduli space. Contained in some of these components are M theory compactifications with novel kinds of ``frozen'' singularities. We are naturally led to conjecture the existence of new dualities relating spaces with different singular geometries and fluxes. As our study of these vacua unfolds, we also learn about additional topics including: F theory on spaces without section, automorphisms of del Pezzo surfaces, and novel physics (and puzzles) from equivariant K-theory. Lastly, we comment on how the data we gain about the M theory three-form might be interpreted.