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Which String Vibrations Become Which Generations on the Dwork Quintic

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Abstract

We determine, for the heterotic string on the one-parameter family of quintic threefolds, which vibration modes become which families of charged particles. The hundred and one families are labelled by the characters of a symmetry group of order one hundred and twenty-five. Every Yukawa coupling that this symmetry allows is a power of the modulus, and every other coupling vanishes. The invariant deformation pairs each family with exactly one partner, so that fifty families are massless at the Fermat point and none anywhere else, and at the Fermat point the masses are given in closed form by the Gamma function. On the three other one-parameter families of the same type, in weighted projective spaces, the symmetry no longer tells the families apart and some families stay massless at every member. We also prove that the Geometric Selection Conjecture is equivalent to the existence of one viable vacuum fixed by mirror symmetry, and that a free quotient of a Calabi–Yau complete intersection of any of the thirteen one-parameter hypergeometric types never carries three families with the standard embedding; on seven of these types, among them the sextic and dectic pencils, no finite group acts freely at all.

Introduction

A closed string moving in ten dimensions has a tower of vibration modes, and the massless ones of the heterotic string on a product of four-dimensional space-time with a compact six-manifold XX are the fields of a four-dimensional gauge theory. When XX is a Calabi–Yau threefold and the gauge connection is identified with the Levi-Civita connection of its Ricci-flat metric, the gauge group is E6E_6 and the charged chiral multiplets come in two conjugate representations whose numbers are the two Hodge numbers of XX. This was established in 1985 by Candelas, Horowitz, Strominger and Witten [1] and by Witten [2], and the couplings of three charged fields were identified by Strominger [3] with an integral over XX that Candelas [4] computed on the quintic threefold. The question in the title is the one that this dictionary leaves open: a vibration mode is a cohomology class on XX, a particle generation is an irreducible piece of the four-dimensional spectrum, and one wants to know which class carries which generation, with what mass, and how this changes as XX moves in its moduli space.1

We answer it completely on one family, the Dwork pencil of quintics

Xψ={x15+x25+x35+x45+x55−5ψx1x2x3x4x5=0}⊂P4,(1)X_{\psi}=\{x_{1}^{5}+x_{2}^{5}+x_{3}^{5}+x_{4}^{5}+x_{5}^{5}-5\psi x_{1}x_{2}x_{3}x_{4}x_{5}=0\}\subset\mathbb{P}^{4}, \tag*{(1)}

smooth for ψ5≠1\psi^{5}\ne1, which is the family on which mirror symmetry was first tested by Candelas, de la Ossa, Green and Parkes [5] and on which the Yukawa couplings were counted by Doran, Greene and Judes [6]. The group Γ≅(Z/5)3\Gamma\cong(\mathbb{Z}/5)^{3} of diagonal phases preserving the equation acts on every member of the pencil, and the hundred and one classes in H2,1(Xψ)H^{2,1}(X_{\psi}), which are the hundred and one copies of the 2727, are the monomials xbx^{\mathbf{b}} with exponent vector b∈{0,1,2,3}5\mathbf{b}\in\{0,1,2,3\}^{5} of total degree five. The results are the following.

Theorem 1 (Labels). The hundred and one classes carry hundred and one distinct characters of Γ\Gamma, each with multiplicity one, so every generation is labelled by its character. Of the hundred and twenty-five characters of Γ\Gamma the twenty-four that do not occur are exactly the classes of the permutations of (0,1,2,3,4)(0,1,2,3,4). The permutation group S5S_{5} of the coordinates permutes the labels in five orbits of sizes 1, 20, 20, 30 and 30, the five types of generation.

Theorem 2 (Couplings). Let ψ5≠1\psi^{5}\ne1. The cubic form of the pencil, normalised so that the monomial x13⋯x53x_{1}^{3}\cdots x_{5}^{3} has value one, takes on three generations a,b,c\mathbf{a},\mathbf{b},\mathbf{c} the value ψr\psi^{r} when a+b+c≡(3−r)1(mod5)\mathbf{a}+\mathbf{b}+\mathbf{c}\equiv(3-r)\mathbf{1}\pmod5 for some r∈{0,1,2,3}r\in\{0,1,2,3\}, and zero otherwise. There are 1431 unordered triples with a nonzero coupling, 566, 425, 280 and 160 of them with r=0,1,2,3r=0,1,2,3, and all 1431 are nonzero at every smooth member with ψ≠0\psi\ne0.

Theorem 3 (Mass map). The invariant class h=x1x2x3x4x5h=x_{1}x_{2}x_{3}x_{4}x_{5}, the direction of the pencil itself, pairs each generation b\mathbf{b} with exactly one generation σ(b)\sigma(\mathbf{b}), where σ\sigma is an involution of the labels with one fixed point. The coupling of hh, b\mathbf{b} and σ(b)\sigma(\mathbf{b}) equals 11 for the fifty-one labels with all entries at most two, ψ\psi for the thirty labels of type (3,1,1,0,0)(3,1,1,0,0) and ψ2\psi^{2} for the twenty labels of type (3,2,0,0,0)(3,2,0,0,0). Hence the mass matrix induced by a vacuum value of the 2727 labelled by hh has full rank one hundred and one for every ψ≠0\psi\ne0, ψ5≠1\psi^{5}\ne1, its determinant is ψ70\psi^{70}, and at the Fermat point ψ=0\psi=0 its rank is fifty-one with the fifty-one generations containing an exponent three massless. The spectrum consists of one singlet and fifty doublets, and the Γ\Gamma-invariant metric is diagonal in the labels, so the fifty doublet masses are, in units of the vacuum value, ∣ψ∣r(b)(gbgσ(b))−1/2|\psi|^{r(\mathbf{b})}(g_{\mathbf{b}}g_{\sigma(\mathbf{b})})^{-1/2} with gg the Hodge norms of the classes.

Theorem 2 is stronger than the count of Doran, Greene and Judes [6], who found by a search that 1431 couplings are allowed by the symmetry; it shows that the symmetry is the only source of zeros, and gives every allowed coupling in closed form. The number 1431 is recovered by hand in § 5.1. The theorems are proved in § 3 to § 6 after the dictionary between vibrations and particles is set out, with complete proofs, in § 2. § 7 evaluates the Hodge norms at the Fermat point in terms of the Gamma function, which turns the mass formula of Theorem 3 into numbers there.

The fourth result concerns the choice of the vacuum. A conjecture of Bhattacharjee, Bhattacharya and Ghosh [33], the Geometric Selection Conjecture, asks for a functional on the heterotic landscape, built from the Weil–Petersson metric, that is proper, has a unique minimum, takes that minimum at a phenomenologically viable vacuum and is invariant under mirror symmetry. The precise statement is recalled in § 9.

Theorem 4 (Selection). The Geometric Selection Conjecture holds if and only if there is a viable vacuum, in the sense of conditions (C1) to (C9) of [33], that is not moved by the mirror involution. On the Dwork pencil the mass condition (C8) holds in the precise form that the mass map of the invariant direction has full rank with entries 11, ψ\psi and ψ2\psi^{2}, at every member with ψ≠0\psi\ne0; the three-family condition (C2) fails on every smooth quintic and on every quotient of a smooth quintic by a group acting freely.

The first part says that the functional carries no information beyond the vacuum it selects: once a viable vacuum is given, a functional with all the required properties is written down in § 9 from the metric alone, and conversely the minimum of any such functional is a viable vacuum. What remains of the conjecture is therefore the existence of one viable vacuum, which is where its content lies. The second part locates the Dwork pencil with respect to that question: its mass spectrum has the full rank and the hierarchy of scales that condition (C8) asks for, and the obstruction is the number of families, a hundred and one on the quintic and 100/∣H∣100/|H| on a free quotient by a group HH, never three.

The same questions can be asked of the three other one-parameter families of Fermat type, the pencils

Xψ={∑i=15xini−dψx1x2x3x4x5=0}⊂P(w),ni=dwi,(2)X_{\psi}=\left\{\sum_{i=1}^{5}x_i^{n_i}-d\psi x_1x_2x_3x_4x_5=0\right\}\subset\mathbb{P}(w),\qquad n_i=\frac{d}{w_i}, \tag*{(2)}

of sextics in P(1,1,1,1,2)\mathbb{P}(1,1,1,1,2), octics in P(1,1,1,1,4)\mathbb{P}(1,1,1,1,4) and dectics in P(1,1,1,2,5)\mathbb{P}(1,1,1,2,5), whose periods and mirror maps were computed by Morrison [24], Klemm and Theisen [25] and Font [26]. Here d=∑iwid=\sum_i w_i is 6, 8 and 10, each member with ψdδ≠1\psi^d\delta\ne1, where δ=∏iwiwi\delta=\prod_i w_i^{w_i} is 4, 256 and 12500, is smooth, and the group Γ\Gamma of diagonal phases preserving the pencil has order 108, 128 and 100. The answer is different there.

Theorem 5 (Weighted pencils). Let XψX_\psi be the sextic, octic or dectic pencil (2) with ψdδ≠1\psi^d\delta\ne1. Then XψX_\psi is a smooth Calabi–Yau threefold with h1,1=1h^{1,1}=1 and h2,1=103h^{2,1}=103, 149 and 145, and the following hold.

(i) The generations are the monomials xbx^b of weighted degree dd with 0≤bi≤ni−20\le b_i\le n_i-2, but they carry only 96, 122 and 100 distinct characters of Γ\Gamma: 7, 27 and 42 classes of two or three generations share a character.

(ii) The cubic form, normalised so that ∏ixini−2\prod_i x_i^{n_i-2} has value one, takes on three generations a,b,c\mathbf a,\mathbf b,\mathbf c the value ψr∏iwiki\psi^r\prod_i w_i^{k_i} when ai+bi+ci=ni−2−r+nikia_i+b_i+c_i=n_i-2-r+n_ik_i for every ii, with r∈{0,…,d−1}r\in\{0,\ldots,d-1\} and integers ki≥0k_i\ge0, and zero otherwise; for ψ≠0\psi\ne0 every coupling allowed by Γ\Gamma is nonzero.

(iii) For ψ≠0\psi\ne0 the mass map of the invariant direction has rank 99, 125 and 109, so that 4, 24 and 36 generations stay massless at every member; at ψ=0\psi=0 its rank is 44, 85 and 72.

(iv) No member, and no quotient of a member by a group acting freely, carries three families with the standard embedding.

So the two properties that make the Dwork pencil transparent are special to it. On the weighted pencils a shift of the exponents at the coordinates of weight one can be balanced by a shift at the coordinate of larger weight, the characters of Γ\Gamma no longer label the generations, and the massless generations all lie in the span of the classes that share a character. The precise form of the mass condition (C8) in Theorem 4 therefore fails on all three pencils, and so does the three-family condition (C2). Theorem 5 is proved in § 8, and Figure 4 compares the four pencils.

The four pencils of Fermat type and rank of the mass map on the dectic pencil

Figure 4. Left: for the quintic in P4\mathbb{P}^{4} and the sextic, octic and dectic pencils in P(1,1,1,1,2)\mathbb{P}(1,1,1,1,2), P(1,1,1,1,4)\mathbb{P}(1,1,1,1,4) and P(1,1,1,2,5)\mathbb{P}(1,1,1,2,5), the number of generations (101, 103, 149, 145), the number of distinct characters they carry (101, 96, 122, 100), and the rank of the mass map of the invariant direction for ψ≠0\psi\ne0 (101, 99, 125, 109) and at ψ=0\psi= 0 (51, 44, 85, 72). Only on the quintic do the first three bars agree. Right: the rank of the mass map over the ψ\psi-plane of the dectic pencil, 109 off the Fermat point and 72 at ψ=0\psi= 0 (the drop is drawn with a small width); the ten points of the circle 12500ψ10=112500\psi^{10}=1 are the singular members.

The count of families reaches beyond the four pencils. Of the fourteen one-parameter families of Calabi–Yau threefolds with hypergeometric Picard–Fuchs equations, thirteen are complete intersections in weighted projective space, and Proposition 27 shows that a finite group acting freely on a smooth member has order divisible only by the primes that divide the greatest common divisor gXg_X of the holomorphic Euler characteristics χ(X,OX(k))\chi(X,\mathcal O_X(k)), k≥1k\ge1. This number is 1 for seven of the thirteen types, the sextic and the dectic among them, which therefore have no free quotient at all, and no free quotient of any of the thirteen carries three families.

The constructions behind the four theorems were organised on the Anaxia engine of the BLLM programme [36, 37].2

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