Gauge symmetry enhancing-breaking from a Double Field Theory perspective

• Main Authors: G. Aldazabal, E. Andrés, Martín Mayo, J. A. Rosabal
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: SpringerOpen 2017-07-01
• Series: Journal of High Energy Physics
• Subjects: Bosonic Strings; Flux compactifications; String Duality
• Online Access: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/JHEP07(2017)045

Abstract Gauge symmetry enhancing, at specific points of the compactification space, is a distinguished feature of string theory. In this work we discuss the breaking of such symmetries with tools provided by Double Field Theory (DFT). As a main guiding example we discuss the bosonic string compactified on a circle where, at the self-dual radio the generic U(1) × U(1) gauge symmetry becomes enhanced to SU(2) × SU(2). We show that the enhancing-breaking of the gauge symmetry can be understood through a dependence of gauge structure constants (fluxes in DFT) on moduli. This dependence, in DFT description, is encoded in the generalized tangent frame of the double space. The explicit T-duality invariant formulation provided by DFT proves to be a helpful ingredient. The link with string theory results is discussed and generalizations to generic tori compactifications are addressed.