Gauge Five Brane Dynamics And Small Instanton Transitions In Heterotic Models

We present the first examples of cosmological solutions to four-dimensional heterotic models which include an evolving bundle modulus. The particular bundle modulus we consider corresponds to the width of a gauge five brane. As such our solutions can be used to describe the evolution in one of these models after a small instanton transition. We find that certain properties are generic to these solutions, regardless of initial conditions. This enables us to make some definite statements about the dynamics subsequent to a small instanton transition despite the fact that we cannot microscopically describe the process itself. We also show that an effective description of the small instanton transition by a continuous matching of fields and their first derivatives is precluded by the form of the respective low-energy theories before and after the transition.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figure

A Heterotic Standard Model with B-L Symmetry and a Stable Proton

We consider heterotic Calabi-Yau compactifications with S(U(4)xU(1)) background gauge fields. These models lead to gauge groups with an additional U(1) factor which, under certain conditions, can combine with hypercharge to a B-L symmetry. The associated gauge boson is automatically super-massive and, hence, does not constitute a phenomenological problem. We illustrate this class of compactifications with a model based on the monad construction, which leads to a supersymmetric standard model with three families of quarks and leptons, one pair of Higgs doublets, three right-handed neutrinos and no exotics charged under the standard model group. The presence of the B-L symmetry means that the model is safe from proton decay induced by dimension four operators. Due to the presence of a special locus in moduli space where the bundle structure group is Abelian and the low-energy symmetry enhances we can also show the absence of dimension five proton-decay inducing operators.Comment: 23 pages Late

Non-generic Couplings in Supersymmetric Standard Models

We study two phases of a heterotic standard model, obtained from a Calabi-Yau compactification of the E8xE8 heterotic string, in the context of the associated four-dimensional effective theories. In the first phase we have a standard model gauge group, an MSSM spectrum, four additional U(1) symmetries and singlet fields. In the second phase, obtained from the first by continuing along the singlet directions, three of the additional U(1) symmetries are spontaneously broken and the remaining one is a B-L symmetry. In this second phase, dimension five operators inducing proton decay are consistent with all symmetries and as such, they are expected to be present. We show that, contrary to this expectation, these operators are forbidden due to the additional U(1) symmetries present in the first phase of the model. We emphasize that such 'unexpected' absences of operators, due to symmetry enhancement at specific loci in the moduli space, can be phenomenologically relevant and, in the present case, protect the model from fast proton decay.Comment: 5 page

Holomorphic Yukawa Couplings for Complete Intersection Calabi-Yau Manifolds

We develop methods to compute holomorphic Yukawa couplings for heterotic compactifications on complete intersection Calabi-Yau manifolds, generalising results of an earlier paper for Calabi-Yau hypersurfaces. Our methods are based on constructing the required bundle-valued forms explicitly and evaluating the relevant integrals over the projective ambient space. We also show how our approach relates to an earlier, algebraic one to calculate the holomorphic Yukawa couplings. A vanishing theorem, which we prove, implies that certain Yukawa couplings allowed by low-energy symmetries are zero due to topological reasons. To illustrate our methods, we calculate Yukawa couplings for SU(5)-based standard models on a co-dimension two complete intersection manifold.Comment: 40 pages, Latex; v2: minor corrections, references adde

A Variational Perspective on Accelerated Methods in Optimization

Accelerated gradient methods play a central role in optimization, achieving optimal rates in many settings. While many generalizations and extensions of Nesterov's original acceleration method have been proposed, it is not yet clear what is the natural scope of the acceleration concept. In this paper, we study accelerated methods from a continuous-time perspective. We show that there is a Lagrangian functional that we call the \emph{Bregman Lagrangian} which generates a large class of accelerated methods in continuous time, including (but not limited to) accelerated gradient descent, its non-Euclidean extension, and accelerated higher-order gradient methods. We show that the continuous-time limit of all of these methods correspond to traveling the same curve in spacetime at different speeds. From this perspective, Nesterov's technique and many of its generalizations can be viewed as a systematic way to go from the continuous-time curves generated by the Bregman Lagrangian to a family of discrete-time accelerated algorithms.Comment: 38 pages. Subsumes an earlier working draft arXiv:1509.0361

Guaranteed Convergence of a Regularized Kohn-Sham Iteration in Finite Dimensions

The exact Kohn-Sham iteration of generalized density-functional theory in finite dimensions witha Moreau-Yosida regularized universal Lieb functional and an adaptive damping step is shown toconverge to the correct ground-state density.Comment: 3 figures, contains erratum with additional author Paul E. Lammer

Making Distinct Dynamical Systems Appear Spectrally Identical

We show that a laser pulse can always be found that induces a desired optical response from an arbitrary dynamical system. As illustrations, driving fields are computed to induce the same optical response from a variety of distinct systems (open and closed, quantum and classical). As a result, the observed induced dipolar spectra without detailed information on the driving field is not sufficient to characterize atomic and molecular systems. The formulation may also be applied to design materials with specified optical characteristics. These findings reveal unexplored flexibilities of nonlinear optics.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figure