Search NASA⌕ Search

Engineering topics

Cvetič, Mirjam

Publications and source records attributed to Cvetič, Mirjam.

Frozen generalized symmetries

M-theory frozen singularities are (locally) D - or E -type orbifold singularities with a background fractional C 3 -monodromy surrounding them. In this paper, we revisit such backgrounds and address several puzzling features of their physics. We first give a top-down derivation of how the D - or E -type 7D N = 1 gauge theory directly “freezes” to a lower-rank gauge theory due to the C 3 background. This relies on a Hanany-Witten effect of fractional M5 branes and the presence of a gauge anomaly of fractional D p probes in the circle reduction. Additionally, we compute defect groups and 8D symmetry topological field theories of the 7D frozen theories in several duality frames. We apply our results to understanding the evenness condition of strings ending on O 7 + planes, and calculating the global forms of supergravity gauge groups of M-theory compactified on T 4 / Γ with frozen singularities. We also revisit IIA A D E singularities with a C 1 -monodromy along a 1-cycle in the boundary lens space and show that this freezes the gauge degrees of freedom via confinement. Published by the American Physical Society 2025

Cvetič, Mirjam↗

Nonperturbative resolution of strong coupling singularities in 4D 𝒩 = 1 heterotic M-theory

We investigate the interior of the moduli space of four-dimensional 𝒩 = 1 theories of gravity arising from compactifications of the 𝐸 8 × 𝐸 8 heterotic string on Calabi-Yau threefolds. By studying the threshold corrections to the coupling of the heterotic gauge groups, we infer the existence of a strong coupling singularity for one of the perturbative heterotic gauge groups, which effectively yields an additional finite distance boundary of the classical scalar field space. In heterotic M-theory, this boundary maps to a domain wall solution for which the gauge coupling and the warp factor on one of the Horava-Witten 9-branes diverge, thus highlighting the gravitational origin of the classical strong coupling singularity. The divergence of the warp factor is, however, regulated once nonperturbative effects are taken into account, as we demonstrate by studying the instanton corrections to the 5D BPS domain wall equations. This regularization implies that the classical strong coupling boundary of the scalar field 4D 𝒩 = 1 heterotic M-theory is resolved, indicating that, at the quantum level, the field space can be extended beyond this classical boundary.

Cvetič, Mirjam↗

Improved Statistics for F-theory Standard Models

Much of the analysis of F-theory-based Standard Models boils down to computing cohomologies of line bundles on matter curves. By varying parameters one can degenerate such matter curves to singular ones, typically with many nodes, where the computation is combinatorial and straightforward. The question remains to relate the (a priori possibly smaller) value on the original curve to the singular one. In this work, we introduce some elementary techniques (pruning trees and removing interior edges) for simplifying the resulting nodal curves to a small collection of terminal ones that can be handled directly. When applied to the QSMs, these techniques yield optimal results in the sense that obtaining more precise answers would require currently unavailable information about the QSM geometries. This provides us with an opportunity to enhance the statistical bounds established in earlier research regarding the absence of vector-like exotics on the quark-doublet curve.

Bies, Martin↗

Fluxbranes, generalized symmetries, and Verlinde’s metastable monopole

The stringy realization of generalized symmetry operators involves wrapping “branes at infinity”. We argue that in the case of continuous (as opposed to discrete) symmetries, the appropriate objects are fluxbranes. We use this perspective to revisit the phase structure of Verlinde’s monopole, a proposed particle satisfies the Bogomol’nyi-Prasad-Sommerfield (BPS) condition when gravity is decoupled, but is non-BPS and metastable when gravity is switched on. Geometrically, this monopole is obtained from branes wrapped on locally stable but globally trivial cycles of a compactification geometry. The fluxbrane picture allows us to characterize electric (respectively magnetic) confinement (respectively screening) in the 4D theory as a result of monopole decay. In the presence of the fluxbrane, this decay also creates lower-dimensional fluxbranes, which in the field theory is interpreted as the creation of an additional topological field theory sector. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Astronomy & Astrophysics↗

Generalized symmetries, gravity, and the swampland

Generalized global symmetries are a common feature of many quantum field theories decoupled from gravity. By contrast, in quantum gravity/the Swampland program, it is widely expected that all global symmetries are either gauged or broken, and this breaking is in turn related to the expected completeness of the spectrum of charged states in quantum gravity. We investigate the fate of such symmetries in the context of 7D and 5D vacua realized by compact Calabi-Yau spaces with localized singularities in M theory. We explicitly show how gravitational backgrounds support additional dynamical degrees of freedom which trivialize (i.e., “break”) the higher symmetries of the local geometric models. Local compatibility conditions across these different sectors lead to gluing conditions for gauging higher-form and (in the 5D case) higher-group symmetries. This also leads to a preferred global structure of the gauge group and higher-form gauge symmetries. In cases based on a genus-one fibered Calabi-Yau space, we also get an F-theory model in one higher dimension with corresponding constraints on the global form of the gauge group. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Astronomy & Astrophysics↗

Brill-Noether-general limit root bundles: absence of vector-like exotics in F-theory Standard Models

Root bundles appear prominently in studies of vector-like spectra of 4d F-theory compactifications. Of particular importance to phenomenology are the Quadrillion F-theory Standard Models (F-theory QSMs). In this work, we analyze a superset of the physical root bundles whose cohomologies encode the vector-like spectra for the matter representations ($3$, $2$) 1/6 , ($\overline{3}$, $1$) -2/3 and ($1$, $1$) 1 . For the family B 3 (Δ$^{°}_{4}$) consisting of $\mathcal{O}$(10 11 ) F-theory QSM geometries, we argue that more than 99.995% of the roots in this superset have no vector-like exotics. This indicates that absence of vector-like exotics in those representations is a very likely scenario in the O(10 11 ) QSM geometries B 3 (Δ$^{°}_{4}$). The QSM geometries come in families of toric 3-folds B 3 (Δ°) obtained from triangulations of certain 3-dimensional polytopes Δ°. The matter curves in X Σ $\large{ϵ}$ B 3 (Δ°) can be deformed to nodal curves which are the same for all spaces in B 3 (Δ°). Therefore, one can probe the vector-like spectra on the entire family B 3 (Δ°) from studies of a few nodal curves. We compute the cohomologies of all limit roots on these nodal curves. In our applications, for the majority of limit roots the cohomologies are determined by line bundle cohomology on rational tree-like curves. For this, we present a computer algorithm. The remaining limit roots, corresponding to circuit-like graphs, are handled by hand. The cohomologies are independent of the relative position of the nodes, except for a few circuits. On these jumping circuits, line bundle cohomologies can jump if nodes are specially aligned. This mirrors classical Brill-Noether jumps. B 3 (Δ°) admits a jumping circuit, but the root bundle constraints pick the canonical bundle and no jump happens.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Machine learning and algebraic approaches towards complete matter spectra in 4d F-theory

Motivated by engineering vector-like (Higgs) pairs in the spectrum of 4d F-theory compactifications, we combine machine learning and algebraic geometry techniques to analyze line bundle cohomologies on families of holomorphic curves. To quantify jumps of these cohomologies, we first generate 1.8 million pairs of line bundles and curves embedded in dP 3 , for which we compute the cohomologies. A white-box machine learning approach trained on this data provides intuition for jumps due to curve splittings, which we use to construct additional vector-like Higgs-pairs in an F-Theory toy model. We also find that, in order to explain quantitatively the full dataset, further tools from algebraic geometry, in particular Brill-Noether theory, are required. Using these ingredients, we introduce a diagrammatic way to express cohomology jumps across the parameter space of each family of matter curves, which reflects a stratification of the F-theory complex structure moduli space in terms of the vector-like spectrum. Furthermore, these insights provide an algorithmically efficient way to estimate the possible cohomology dimensions across the entire parameter space.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Gaussian null coordinates, near-horizon geometry and conserved charges on the horizon of extremal nondilatonic black p-branes

In this paper, we examine the emergence of conserved charges on the horizon of a particular class of extremal nondilatonic black [Formula: see text]-branes (which reduce to extremal dilatonic black holes in [Formula: see text] dimensions upon toroidal compactification) in the presence of a probe massless scalar field in the bulk. This result is achieved by writing the black [Formula: see text]-brane geometry in a Gaussian null coordinate system which allows us to get a nonsingular near-horizon geometry description. We find that the near-horizon geometry is [Formula: see text] and that the [Formula: see text] section has an internal structure which can be seen as a warped product of [Formula: see text] in Gaussian null coordinates. We show that the bulk scalar field satisfying the field equations is expanded in terms of nonnormalizable and normalizable modes, which for certain suitable quantization conditions are well-behaved at the boundary of [Formula: see text] space. Furthermore, we show that picking the normalizable modes results in the existence of conserved quantities on the horizon. We discuss the impact of these conserved quantities in the late-time regime.

Astronomy & Astrophysics↗