Twisted Sectors and Chern–Simons Terms in M-Theory Orbifolds

Abstract

It is shown that the twisted sector spectrum, as well as the associated Chern–Simons interactions, can be determined on M-theory orbifold fixed planes that do not admit gravitational anomalies. This is demonstrated for the seven-planes arising within the context of an explicit R6 × S1/Z2 × T4/Z2 orbifold, although the results are completely general. Local anomaly cancellation in this context is shown to require fractional anomaly data that can only arise from a twisted sector on the seven-planes, thus determining the twisted spectrum up to a small ambiguity. These results open the door to the construction of arbitrary M-theory orbifolds, including those containing fixed four-planes which are of phenomenological interest.