Orientifolding the conifold

TL;DR

This paper explores the construction and spectrum analysis of N=1 supersymmetric field theories on D3-branes at orientifolded conifold singularities, establishing a T-duality with type IIA brane configurations and using blow-up techniques for spectrum computation.

Contribution

It introduces new models of supersymmetric theories on orientifolded conifolds and verifies T-duality through spectrum matching, employing blow-up methods for non-orbifold singularities.

Findings

Spectrum matches between type IIB and type IIA descriptions.

Constructed models via blow-up of orbifold orientifolds.

Confirmed consistency of non-orbifold orientifold models.

Abstract

In this paper we study the N=1 supersymmetric field theories realized on the world-volume of type IIB D3-branes sitting at orientifolds of non-orbifold singularities (conifold and generalizations). Several chiral models belong to this family of theories. These field theories have a T-dual realization in terms of type IIA configurations of relatively rotated NS fivebranes, D4-branes and orientifold six-planes, with a compact $x^6$ direction, along which the D4-branes have finite extent. We compute the spectrum on the D3-branes directly in the type IIB picture and match the resulting field theories with those obtained in the type IIA setup, thus providing a non-trivial check of this T-duality. Since the usual techniques to compute the spectrum of the model and check the cancellation of tadpoles, cannot be applied to the case orientifolds of non-orbifold singularities, we use a different approach, and construct the models by partially blowing-up orientifolds of C^3/(Z_2 x Z_2) and C^3/(Z_2 x Z_3) orbifolds.