F-Theory, GUTs and Chiral Matter

Abstract

This is a write-up of a two hour talk at the Simons workshop. It contains an elementary introduction to F-theory and may be useful for people new to the subject.

Figures (4)

• Figure 1: An open fundamental string in type IIb lifts to a membrane wrapping an exceptional cycle in $F$-theory. Some W-bosons may correspond to ground states of multi-pronged $(p,q)$ strings .
• Figure 2: Representation of the fundamental roots of $E_8$ from DeWolfe:1998zf. Here a cross denotes an $A$-brane, a circle denotes a $B$-brane, and a box denotes a $C$-brane.
• Figure 3: An $I_5$ locus in the IIb space-time, intersecting an $I_1$ locus over an $I_6$ degeneration and an $I_1^*$ degeneration.
• Figure 4: If we thread fluxes through cycles which are trivializable in the bulk, then the overlap with zero modes of bulk axions vanishes.