F-theory on 6D symmetric toroidal orbifolds

Abstract

In this work we study F-theory on symmetric toroidal orbifolds that exhibit roto-translations, which are point group rotations accompanied by fractional lattice shifts. These geometries admit a rich class of effects, such as twisted affine folded fibers, multiple fibers, and up to three distinct torus-fibrations that yield different M/F-theory lifts. We discuss the six-dimensional physics of the F-theory lifts, which generically host superconformal subsectors and a IIB axio-dilaton fixed to strong coupling. In addition we find that these theories exhibit a rich set of p = 0, 1, 2 discrete p-form gauge symmetries. We discuss six-dimensional gauge and supergravity anomalies and match the rank and tensor branch dimension to the Hodge numbers that were computed using heterotic world sheet techniques.