On the Connectedness of the Moduli Space of Calabi--Yau Manifolds

TL;DR

This paper proves the connectedness of the moduli space of certain Calabi-Yau manifolds using toric geometry and reflexive polyhedra, suggesting the entire class of simply connected Calabi-Yau manifolds has a connected moduli space.

Contribution

It demonstrates the connectedness of the moduli space for Calabi-Yau hypersurfaces in weighted projective spaces, extending previous results and using Batyrev's toric construction.

Findings

Moduli space of these Calabi-Yau manifolds is connected.

Connections to CICYs imply the entire class may have a connected moduli space.

Singularities occur at the intersections of different moduli spaces.

Abstract

We show that the moduli space of all Calabi-Yau manifolds that can be realized as hypersurfaces described by a transverse polynomial in a four dimensional weighted projective space, is connected. This is achieved by exploiting techniques of toric geometry and the construction of Batyrev that relate Calabi-Yau manifolds to reflexive polyhedra. Taken together with the previously known fact that the moduli space of all CICY's is connected, and is moreover connected to the moduli space of the present class of Calabi-Yau manifolds (since the quintic threefold P_4[5] is both CICY and a hypersurface in a weighted P_4, this strongly suggests that the moduli space of all simply connected Calabi-Yau manifolds is connected. It is of interest that singular Calabi-Yau manifolds corresponding to the points in which the moduli spaces meet are often, for the present class, more singular than the conifolds that connect the moduli spaces of CICY's.