Non-Perturbative Superpotentials in F-theory and String Duality

TL;DR

This paper explores non-perturbative superpotentials in F-theory and string duality, providing explicit calculations of flux potentials and D3-instanton effects, advancing understanding of string compactifications and de Sitter vacua.

Contribution

It offers a systematic computation of D3-instanton contributions in F-theory and generalizes the Gukov-Vafa-Witten superpotential for type II strings on generalized Calabi-Yau manifolds.

Findings

Explicit flux potential including D3-instantons in F-theory

Demonstration of effective lifting of zero modes by flux

Generalization of superpotential depending on all moduli

Abstract

We use open-closed string duality between F-theory on K3xK3 and type II strings on CY manifolds without branes to study non-perturbative superpotentials in generalized flux compactifications. On the F-theory side we obtain the full flux potential including D3-instanton contributions and show that it leads to an explicit and simple realization of the three ingredients of the KKLT model for stringy dS vacua. The D3-instanton contribution is highly non-trivial, can be systematically computed including the determinant factors and demonstrates that a particular flux lifts very effectively zero modes on the instanton. On the closed string side, we propose a generalization of the Gukov-Vafa-Witten superpotential for type II strings on generalized CY manifolds, depending on all moduli multiplets.