2015/06/22 by Luca Martucci, Martucci, Luca, Timo Weigand +1 · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th) #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #hep-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1506.06764
49 pages, 9 figures; v2: references added
openalex publication_date 2015/06/22 · arxiv created 2015/10/19 · arxiv updated 2015/10/20 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We discuss the structure of charged matter couplings in 4-dimensional F-theory compactifications. Charged matter is known to arise from M2-branes wrapping fibral curves on an elliptic or genus-one fibration Y. If a set of fibral curves satisfies a homological relation in the fibre homology, a coupling involving the states can arise without exponential volume suppression due to a splitting and joining of the M2-branes. If the fibral curves only sum to zero in the integral homology of the full fibration, no such coupling is possible. In this case an M2-instanton wrapping a 3-chain bounded by the fibral matter curves can induce a D-term which is volume suppressed. We elucidate the consequences of this pattern for the appearance of massive U(1) symmetries in F-theory and analyse the structure of discrete selection rules in the coupling sector. The weakly coupled analogue of said M2-instantons is worked out to be given by D1-F1 instantons. The generation of an exponentially suppressed F-term requires the formation of half-BPS bound states of M2 and M5-instantons. This effect and its description in terms of fluxed M5-instantons is discussed in a companion paper.