Fixing All Moduli in a Simple F-Theory Compactification

TL;DR

This paper presents a straightforward F-theory compactification model that successfully stabilizes all moduli using fluxes, instantons, and gauge dynamics, and explores novel phenomena like brane-O3 plane transitions.

Contribution

It introduces a simple F-theory setup that achieves complete moduli stabilization and examines new topological transition phenomena involving D7 branes and O3 planes.

Findings

All moduli can be fixed with fluxes and nonperturbative effects.

Higher order corrections only cause small shifts in the potential.

Discovery of transitions where D7 branes absorb O3 planes, changing topology.

Abstract

We discuss a simple example of an F-theory compactification on a Calabi-Yau fourfold where background fluxes, together with nonperturbative effects from Euclidean D3 instantons and gauge dynamics on D7 branes, allow us to fix all closed and open string moduli. We explicitly check that the known higher order corrections to the potential, which we neglect in our leading approximation, only shift the results by a small amount. In our exploration of the model, we encounter interesting new phenomena, including examples of transitions where D7 branes absorb O3 planes, while changing topology to preserve the net D3 charge.