Counting BPS states on the Enriques Calabi-Yau

TL;DR

This work analyzes topological string amplitudes on the FHSV (Enriques) Calabi-Yau using heterotic/type II duality, mirror symmetry, and holomorphic anomaly. It identifies two distinct one-loop reductions that yield different BPS content, connecting them to D0–D2 and D0–D4–D2 bound states on the Enriques fibre, and provides genus-by-genus results expressible in terms of modular forms up to a finite genus. Through a reduced B-model in an algebraic realization, the authors obtain exact, closed expressions for genus up to 4 and demonstrate agreement with heterotic results, suggesting potential exact solvability of the model. The work also establishes a clear link between GV invariants, lattice-reduction techniques, and modular form structures, with implications for counting BPS states in Enriques-fiber geometries and for exact solutions in compact Calabi–Yau settings.

Abstract

We study topological string amplitudes for the FHSV model using various techniques. This model has a type II realization involving a Calabi-Yau threefold with Enriques fibres, which we call the Enriques Calabi-Yau. By applying heterotic/type IIA duality, we compute the topological amplitudes in the fibre to all genera. It turns out that there are two different ways to do the computation that lead to topological couplings with different BPS content. One of them leads to the standard D0-D2 counting amplitudes, and from the other one we obtain information about bound states of D0-D4-D2 branes on the Enriques fibre. We also study the model using mirror symmetry and the holomorphic anomaly equations. We verify in this way the heterotic results for the D0-D2 generating functional for low genera and find closed expressions for the topological amplitudes on the total space in terms of modular forms, and up to genus four. This model turns out to be much simpler than the generic B-model and might be exactly solvable.