Discrete Wilson Lines in F-Theory

F-theory models are constructed where the 7-brane has a non-trivial fundamental group. The base manifolds used are a toric Fano variety and a smooth toric threefold coming from a reflexive polyhedron. The discriminant locus of the elliptically fibered Calabi-Yau fourfold can be chosen such that one irreducible component it is not simply connected (namely, an Enriques surface) and supports a non-Abelian gauge theory.Comment: 22 pages, 4 figures, 3 table

Counting Points and Hilbert Series in String Theory

The problem of counting points is revisited from the perspective of reflexive 4-dimensional polytopes. As an application, the Hilbert series of the 473,800,776 reflexive polytopes (equivalently, their Calabi-Yau hypersurfaces) are computed.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figures. Contribution to the Max Kreuzer memorial volum

Superconformal Field Theories for Compact Manifolds with Spin(7) Holonomy

We present a construction of superconformal field theories for manifolds with Spin(7) holonomy. Geometrically these models correspond to the realization of Spin(7) manifolds as anti-holomorphic quotients of Calabi-Yau fourfolds. Describing the fourfolds as Gepner models and requiring anomaly cancellation we determine the resulting Betti numbers of the Spin(7) superconformal field theory. As in the G_2 case, we find that the Gepner model and the geometric result disagree.Comment: 16 pages, TeX, harvmac, refs. adde

Superconformal Field Theories for Compact G_2 Manifolds

We present the construction of exactly solvable superconformal field theories describing Type II string models compactified on compact G_2 manifolds. These models are defined by anti-holomorphic quotients of the form (CY*S^1)/Z_2, where we realize the Calabi-Yau as a Gepner model. In the superconformal field theory the Z_2 acts as charge conjugation implying that the representation theory of a W(2,4,6,8,10) algebra plays an important role in the construction of these models. Intriguingly, in all three examples we study, including the quintic, the massless spectrum in the Z_2 twisted sector of the superconformal field theory differs from what one expects from the supergravity computation. This discrepancy is explained by the presence of a discrete NS-NS background two-form flux in the Gepner model.Comment: 35 pages, TeX, harvmac, references added, typos corrected, extended discussion in section

D-Brane Charges in Gepner Models

We construct Gepner models in terms of coset conformal field theories and compute their twisted equivariant K-theories. These classify the D-brane charges on the associated geometric backgrounds and therefore agree with the topological K-theories. We show this agreement for various cases, in particular the Fermat quintic.Comment: 25 pages, 2 figures. LaTeX. v2: typos and references corrected. v3: reference adde

Two Higgs Pair Heterotic Vacua and Flavor-Changing Neutral Currents

We present a vacuum of heterotic M-theory whose observable sector has the MSSM spectrum with the addition of one extra pair of Higgs-Higgs conjugate superfields. The quarks/leptons have a realistic mass hierarchy with a naturally light first family. The double elliptic structure of the Calabi-Yau compactification threefold leads to two ``stringy'' selection rules. These classically disallow Yukawa couplings to the second Higgs pair and, hence, Higgs mediated flavor-changing neutral currents. Such currents are induced in higher-dimensional interactions, but are naturally suppressed. We show that our results fit comfortably below the observed upper bounds on neutral flavor-changing processes.Comment: 52 pages, 3 figures, 1 table, requires feynm