This thesis is devoted to a thorough study of chiral rings in two-dimensional (0,2) theories. We first discuss properties of chiral operators in general two-dimensional (0,2) nonlinear sigma models, both in theories twistable to the A/2 or B/2 model, as well as in non-twistable theories. As a special case, we study the quantum sheaf cohomology of Grassmannians as a deformation of the usual quantum cohomology. The deformation corresponds to a (0,2) deformation of the nonabelian gauged linear sigma model whose geometric phase is associated with the Grassmannian. Combined with the classical result, the quantum ring structure is derived from the one-loop effective potential. Supersymmetric localization is also applicable in this case, which proves to be efficient in computing A/2 correlation functions. We then compute chiral operators in general (0,2) nonlinear sigma models, and apply them to the Gadde-Gukov-Putrov triality proposal, which says that certain triples of (0,2) GLSMs should RG flow to nontrivial IR fixed points. As another application, we extend previous works to construct (0,2) Toda-like mirrors to the sigma model engineering Grassmannians. / Ph. D. / This thesis studies a mathematical concept called the chiral ring, which emerges from string theory. String theory is a conjectured theory that potentially unifies the existing fundamental physical laws. It has connections with many branches of mathematics, especially geometry. Spacetime is ten-dimensional in string theory, of which four dimensions are visible, and the other six are hidden at ordinary energy levels. The chiral ring encodes many geometric properties of the hidden part of spacetime. These properties can in turn affect the visible universe even at low energies. Research on chiral rings has primarily focused on a special class of geometries which have large symmetries and so are easier to handle. In order to tackle more general scenarios, we analyze the chiral rings corresponding to theories with only half the symmetry and give several new results and applications.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/77530 |
| Date | 26 April 2017 |
| Creators | Guo, Jirui |
| Contributors | Physics, Sharpe, Eric R., Anderson, Lara B., Huber, Patrick, Piilonen, Leo E. |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Dissertation |
| Format | ETD, application/pdf |
| Rights | In Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
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