In this thesis, we apply the methods of numerical differential geometry to several different problems in heterotic Calabi-Yau compactification. We review algorithms for computing both the Ricci-flat metric on Calabi-Yau manifolds and Hermitian Yang-Mills connections on poly-stable holomorphic vector bundles over those spaces. We apply the numerical techniques for obtaining Ricci-flat metrics to study hierarchies of curvature scales over Calabi-Yau manifolds as a function of their complex structure moduli. The work we present successfully finds known large curvature regions on these manifolds, and provides useful information about curvature variation at general points in moduli space. This research is important in determining the validity of the low energy effective theories used in the description of Calabi-Yau compactifications. The numerical techniques for obtaining Hermitian Yang-Mills connections are applied in two different fashions in this thesis. First, we demonstrate that they can be successfully used to numerically determine the stability of vector bundles with qualitatively different features to those that have appeared in the literature to date. Second, we use these methods to further develop some calculations of holomorphic Chern-Simons invariant contributions to the heterotic superpotential that have recently appeared in the literature. A complete understanding of these quantities requires explicit knowledge of the Hermitian Yang-Mills connections involved. This feature makes such investigations prohibitively hard to pursue analytically, and a natural target for numerical techniques. / Doctor of Philosophy / String theory is one of the most promising attempts to unify gravity with the other three fundamental interactions (electromagnetic, weak and strong) of nature. It is believed to give a self-consistent theory of quantum gravity, which, at low energy, could contain all of the physics that we known, from the Standard Model of particle physics to cosmology. String theories are often defined in nine spatial dimensions. To obtain a theory with three spatial dimensions one needs to hide, or ``compactify," six of the dimensions on a compact space which is small enough to have remained unobserved by our experiments. Unfortunately, the geometries of these spaces, called Calabi-Yau manifolds, and additional structures associated to them, called holomorphic vector bundles, turns out to be extremely complex. The equations determining the exact solutions of string theory for these quantities are highly non-linear partial differential equations (PDE's) which are simply impossible to solve analytically with currently known techniques. Nevertheless, knowledge of these solutions is critical in understanding much of the detailed physics that these theories imply. For example, to compute how the particles seen in three dimensions would interact with each other in a string theoretic model, the explicit form of these solutions would be required. Fortunately, numerical methods do exist for finding approximate solutions to the PDE's of interest. In this thesis we implement these algorithmic techniques and use them to study a variety of physical questions associated to the attempt to link string theory to the physics observed in our experiments.

In dieser Arbeit werden Aspekte der N = 1 Dualität zwischen dem Heterotischen String (der auf einer komplex dreidimensionalen Calabi-Yau Mannigfaltigkeit mit einem Vektorbündel kompaktifiziert wird) und der F-Theorie (die auf einer komplex vierdimensionalen Calabi-Yau Mannigfaltigkeit kompaktifiziert wird) diskutiert. Zu Beginn wird eine allgemeine Beschreibung der Stringdualitäten gegeben. Die Berech- nungen der notwendigen Calabi-Yau Mannigfaltigkeiten- und Vektorbündeldaten, welche Charakteristische Klassen und Bündelmoduli involvieren, werden im Detail durchgeführt. Die acht- bzw. sechsdimensionale Dualität zwischen dem Heterotis- chen String und der F-Theorie wird diskutiert. Im Anschluß erfolgt ein Vergleich der vierdimensionalen Spektren (dies involviert den Vergleich von N = 1 chiralen Multipletts) und ein Vergleich der Anomaliebedingungen (welche zu konsistenten vierdimensionalen Het/F-Theorie Kompaktifizierungen führen). Weiterhin werden vierdimensionale N = 1 Het/F-Theorie Beispiele konstruiert, insbesondere wird eine Klasse von elliptisch gefaserten Calabi-Yau's über del Pezzoflächen betrachtet. / We discuss aspects of N = 1 duality between the heterotic string compactified on a Calabi-Yau threefold with a vector bundle and F-theory on a Calabi-Yau fourfold. After a description of string duality intended for the non-specialist the framework and the constraints for heterotic/F-theory compactifications are presented. The computations of the necessary Calabi-Yau manifold and vector bundle data, involving characteristic classes and bundle moduli, are given in detail. The eight- and six- dimensional dualities are reviewed. The matching of the spectrum of chiral multiplets and of the number of heterotic five-branes respectively F-theory three-branes, needed for anomaly cancellation in four-dimensional vacua, is pointed out. Several examples of four-dimensional dual pairs are constructed where on both sides the geometry of the involved manifolds relies on del Pezzo surfaces.

This thesis contributes with a number of topics to the subject of string compactifications, especially in the instance of the E₈ × E₈ heterotic string theory compactified on smooth Calabi-Yau threefolds. In the first half of the work, I discuss the Hodge plot associated with Calabi-Yau threefolds that are hypersurfaces in toric varieties. The intricate structure of this plot is explained by the existence of certain webs of elliptic-K3 fibrations, whose mirror images are also elliptic-K3 fibrations. Such manifolds arise from reflexive polytopes that can be cut into two parts along slices corresponding to the K3 fiber. Any two half-polytopes over a given slice can be combined into a reflexive polytope. This fact, together with a remarkable relation on the additivity of Hodge numbers, give to the Hodge plot the appearance of a fractal. Moving on, I discuss a different type of web of manifolds, by looking at smooth Z₃-quotients of Calabi-Yau three-folds realised as complete intersections in products of projective spaces. Non-simply connected Calabi-Yau three-folds provide an essential ingredient in heterotic string compactifications. Such manifolds are rare in the classical constructions, but they can be obtained as quotients of homotopically trivial Calabi-Yau three-folds by free actions of finite groups. Many of these quotients are connected by conifold transitions. In the second half of the work, I explore an algorithmic approach to constructing E₈ × E₈ heterotic compactifications using holomorphic and poly-stable sums of line bundles over complete intersection Calabi-Yau three-folds that admit freely acting discrete symmetries. Such Abelian bundles lead to N = 1 supersymmetric GUT theories with gauge group SU(5) × U(4) and matter fields in the 10, ⁻10, ⁻5, 5 and 1 representations of SU(5). The extra U(1) symmetries are generically Green-Schwarz anomalous and, as such, they survive in the low energy theory only as global symmetries. These, in turn, constrain the low energy theory and in many cases forbid the existence of undesired operators, such as dimension four or five proton decay operators. The line bundle construction allows for a systematic computer search resulting in a plethora of models with the exact matter spectrum of the Minimally Supersymmetric Standard Model, one or more pairs of Higgs doublets and no exotic fields charged under the Standard Model group. In the last part of the thesis I focus on the case study of a Calabi-Yau hypersurface embedded in a product of four CP1 spaces, referred to as the tetraquadric manifold. I address the question of the finiteness of the class of consistent and physically viable line bundle models constructed on this manifold. Line bundle sums are part of a moduli space of non-Abelian bundles and they provide an accessible window into this moduli space. I explore the moduli space of heterotic compactifications on the tetraquadric hypersurface around a locus where the vector bundle splits as a direct sum of line bundles, using the monad construction. The monad construction provides a description of poly-stable S(U(4) × U(1))–bundles leading to GUT models with the correct field content in order to induce standard-like models. These deformations represent a class of consistent non-Abelian models that has co-dimension one in Kähler moduli space.

This work concerns the construction of Calabi-Yau threefolds in codimension 4. Based on a study of Hilbert series, we give a list of families of Calabi-Yau threefolds which may exist in codimension 3 and codimension 4. Using birational methods, we construct Calabi-Yau threefolds that realize several of the listed families. The main result is that the cases we consider in codimension 4 lie in two different deformation components.

Cluster categories, introduced by Buan–Marsh–Reineke–Reiten–Todorov and later generalised by Amiot, are certain 2-Calabi–Yau triangulated categories that model the combinatorics of cluster algebras without frozen variables. When frozen variables do occur, it is natural to try to model the cluster combinatorics via a Frobenius category, with the indecomposable projective-injective objects corresponding to these special variables. Amiot–Iyama–Reiten show how Frobenius categories admitting (d-1)-cluster-tilting objects arise naturally from the data of a Noetherian bimodule d-Calabi–Yau algebra A and an idempotent e of A such that A/< e > is finite dimensional. In this work, we observe that this phenomenon still occurs under the weaker assumption that A and A^op are internally d-Calabi–Yau with respect to e; this new definition allows the d-Calabi–Yau property to fail in a way controlled by e. Under either set of assumptions, the algebra B=eAe is Iwanaga–Gorenstein, and eA is a cluster-tilting object in the Frobenius category GP(B) of Gorenstein projective B-modules. Geiß–Leclerc–Schröer define a class of cluster algebras that are, by construction, modelled by certain Frobenius subcategories Sub(Q_J) of module categories over preprojective algebras. Buan–Iyama–Reiten–Smith prove that the endomorphism algebra of a cluster-tilting object in one of these categories is a frozen Jacobian algebra. Following Keller–Reiten, we observe that such algebras are internally 3-Calabi–Yau with respect to the idempotent corresponding to the frozen vertices, thus obtaining a large class of examples of such algebras. Geiß–Leclerc–Schröer also attach, via an algebraic homogenization procedure, a second cluster algebra to each category Sub(Q_J), by adding more frozen variables. We describe how to compute the quiver of a seed in this cluster algebra via approximation theory in the category Sub(Q_J); our alternative construction has the advantage that arrows between the frozen vertices appear naturally. We write down a potential on this enlarged quiver, and conjecture that the resulting frozen Jacobian algebra A and its opposite are internally 3-Calabi–Yau. If true, the algebra may be realised as the endomorphism algebra of a cluster-tilting object in a Frobenius category GP(B) as above. We further conjecture that GP(B) is stably 2-Calabi–Yau, in which case it would provide a categorification of this second cluster algebra.

This thesis constructs tilting bundles obtained from full strong exceptional collections of line bundles on all smooth toric Fano fourfolds. The tilting bundles lead to a large class of explicit Calabi-Yau-5 algebras, obtained as the corresponding rolled-up helix algebra. We provide two different methods to show that a collection of line bundles is full, whilst the strong exceptional condition is checked using the package QuiversToricVarieties for the computer algebra system Macaulay2, written by the author. A database of the full strong exceptional collections can also be found in this package.

Un des aspects fascinants de la théorie des cordes, c'est qu'elle vit dans l'espace-temps de dix dimensions. Mais cela implique que, pour la relier à des observations phénoménologiques, elle devrait ȇtre compactifiées à quatre dimensions. Un cas particulièrement riche, mais toujours faisable correspond à la compactification sur une variété de Calabi-Yau qui donne à basse énergie une théorie effective avec la supersymétrie N=2. L'action de cette théorie est complètement déterminée par la métrique sur son espace des modules qui comporte deux composantes correspondant aux multiplets vectoriels et hypermultiplets. La première est classiquement exacte et bien comprise, alors que la dernière reçoit des corrections quantiques et est connue de porter une géométrie compliquée quaternion-Kählerrienne. Dans cette thèse, nous présentons nos résultats sur la description complète non-perturbative de l'espace des modules des hypermultiplets. Nous montrons comment toutes les corrections quantiques, qui comprennent des contributions perturbatives d'une boucle ainsi que celles non-perturbatives venant des D-branes et NS5-branes, sont incorporées dans le cadre de l'approche twisteurielle. Ce cadre, que nous élaborons ici en détail, fournit une description mathématique puissante des variétés hyperkähleriennes et quaternion-Kähleriennes et il est indispensable pour la formulation de la géométrie non-perturbative de l'espace des modules des hypermultiplets. Nous présentons également de nouveaux résultats sur la dualité-S, symétrie miroir quantique, les connexions à des modèles intégrables et aux cordes topologiques.

In this paper, we study sections of a Calabi-Yau threefold fibered over a curve by K3 surfaces. We show that there exist infinitely many isolated sections on certain K3 fibered Calabi-Yau threefolds and the subgroup of the N´eron-Severi group generated by these sections is not finitely generated. This also gives examples of K3 surfaces over the function field F of a complex curve with Zariski dense F-rational points, whose geometric models are Calabi-Yau. Furthermore, we also generalize our results to the cases of families of higher dimensional Calabi-Yau varieties with Calabi-Yau ambient spaces.

We describe combinatorial techniques for studying log Calabi-Yau surfaces. These can be viewed as generalizing the techniques for studying toric varieties in terms of their character and cocharacter lattices. These lattices are replaced by certain integral linear manifolds described in [GHK11], and monomials on toric varieties are replaced with the canonical theta functions defined in [GHK11] using ideas from mirror symmetry. We classify deformation classes of log Calabi-Yau surfaces in terms of the geometry of these integral linear manifolds. We then describe the tropicalizations of theta functions and use them to generalize the dual pairing between the character and cocharacter lattices. We use this to describe generalizations of dual cones, Newton and polar polytopes, Minkowski sums, and finite Fourier series expansions. We hope that these techniques will generalize to higher rank cluster varieties. / text

This thesis studies certain aspects of the global properties, including geometric and arithmetic, of the moduli spaces of complex structures of some special Calabi-Yau threefolds (B-model), and of the corresponding topological string partition functions defined from them which are closely related to the generating functions of Gromov-Witten invariants of their mirror Calabi-Yau threefolds (A-model) by the mirror symmetry conjecture. / Mathematics