SUSY breaking constraints on modular flavor S3 invariant SU(5) GUT model

Modular flavor symmetry can be used to explain the quark and lepton flavor structures. The SUSY partners of quarks and leptons, which share the same superpotential with the quarks and leptons, will also be constrained by the modular flavor structure and show a different flavor(mixing) pattern at the GUT scale. So, in realistic modular flavor models with SUSY completion, constraints from the collider and DM constraints can also be used to constrain the possible values of the modulus parameter. In the first part of this work, we discuss the possibility that the S3 modular symmetry can be preserved by the fixed points of T2/ZN orbifold, especially from T2/Z2. To illustrate the additional constraints from collider etc on modular flavor symmetry models, we take the simplest UV SUSY-completion S3 modular invariance SU(5) GUT model as an example with generalized gravity mediation SUSY breaking mechanism. We find that such constraints can indeed be useful to rule out a large portion of the modulus parameters. Our numerical results show that the UV-completed model can account for both the SM (plus neutrino) flavor structure and the collider, DM constraints. Such discussions can also be applied straightforwardly to other modular flavor symmetry models, such as A4 or S4 models.

On the spectrum of pure higher spin gravity

We study the spectrum of pure massless higher spin theories in AdS3. The light spectrum is given by a tower of massless particles of spin s = 2, ⋯ , N and their multi-particles states. Their contribution to the torus partition function organises into the vacuum character of the $$ {\mathcal{W}}_N $$ W N algebra. Modular invariance puts constraints on the heavy spectrum of the theory, and in particular leads to negative norm states, which would be inconsistent with unitarity. This negativity can be cured by including additional light states, below the black hole threshold but whose mass grows with the central charge. We show that these states can be interpreted as conical defects with deficit angle 2π(1 − 1/M). Unitarity allows the inclusion of such defects into the path integral provided M ≥ N.

Worldline theories with towers of internal states

We study particle theories that have a tower of worldline internal degrees of freedom. Such a theory can arise when the worldsheet of closed strings is dimensionally reduced to a worldline, in which case the tower is infinite with regularly spaced masses. But our discussion is significantly more general than this, and there is scope to consider all kinds of internal degrees of freedom carried by the propagating particle. For example it is possible to consider towers corresponding to other geometries, or towers with no obvious geometric interpretation that still yield a modular invariant theory. Truncated towers generate non-local particle theories that share with string theory the property of having a Gross-Mende-like saddle point in their amplitudes. This provides a novel framework for constructing exotic theories which may have desirable properties such as finiteness and modular invariance.

Lessons from the Ramond sector

We revisit the consistency of torus partition functions in (1+1)d fermionic conformal field theories, combining old ingredients of modular invariance/covariance with a modernized understanding of bosonization/fermionization dualities. Various lessons can be learned by simply examining the oft-ignored Ramond sector. For several extremal/kinky modular functions in the bootstrap literature, we can either rule out or identify the underlying theory. We also revisit the N = 1 Maloney-Witten partition function by calculating the spectrum in the Ramond sector, and further extending it to include the modular sum of seed Ramond characters. Finally, we perform the full N = 1 RNS modular bootstrap and obtain new universal results on the existence of relevant deformations preserving different amounts of supersymmetry.

Modular invariance in superstring theory from $$ \mathcal{N} $$ = 4 super-Yang-Mills

We study the four-point function of the lowest-lying half-BPS operators in the $$ \mathcal{N} $$ N = 4 SU(N) super-Yang-Mills theory and its relation to the flat-space four-graviton amplitude in type IIB superstring theory. We work in a large-N expansion in which the complexified Yang-Mills coupling τ is fixed. In this expansion, non-perturbative instanton contributions are present, and the SL(2, ℤ) duality invariance of correlation functions is manifest. Our results are based on a detailed analysis of the sphere partition function of the mass-deformed SYM theory, which was previously computed using supersymmetric localization. This partition function determines a certain integrated correlator in the undeformed $$ \mathcal{N} $$ N = 4 SYM theory, which in turn constrains the four-point correlator at separated points. In a normalization where the two-point functions are proportional to N2− 1 and are independent of τ and $$ \overline{\tau} $$ τ ¯ , we find that the terms of order $$ \sqrt{N} $$ N and $$ 1/\sqrt{N} $$ 1 / N in the large N expansion of the four-point correlator are proportional to the non-holomorphic Eisenstein series $$ E\left(\frac{3}{2},\tau, \overline{\tau}\right) $$ E 3 2 τ τ ¯ and $$ E\left(\frac{5}{2},\tau, \overline{\tau}\right) $$ E 5 2 τ τ ¯ , respectively. In the flat space limit, these terms match the corresponding terms in the type IIB S-matrix arising from R4 and D4R4 contact inter-actions, which, for the R4 case, represents a check of AdS/CFT at finite string coupling. Furthermore, we present striking evidence that these results generalize so that, at order $$ {N}^{\frac{1}{2}-m} $$ N 1 2 − m with integer m ≥ 0, the expansion of the integrated correlator we study is a linear sum of non-holomorphic Eisenstein series with half-integer index, which are manifestly SL(2, ℤ) invariant.

Symmetries and stabilisers in modular invariant flavour models

The idea of modular invariance provides a novel explanation of flavour mixing. Within the context of finite modular symmetries ΓN and for a given element γ ∈ ΓN, we present an algorithm for finding stabilisers (specific values for moduli fields τγ which remain unchanged under the action associated to γ). We then employ this algorithm to find all stabilisers for each element of finite modular groups for N = 2 to 5, namely, Γ2 ≃ S3, Γ3 ≃ A4, Γ4 ≃ S4 and Γ5 ≃ A5. These stabilisers then leave preserved a specific cyclic subgroup of ΓN. This is of interest to build models of fermionic mixing where each fermionic sector preserves a separate residual symmetry.

Minimal Conformal Models

Chapter 11 discusses the so-called minimal conformal models, all of which are characterized by a finite number of representations. It goes on to demonstrate how all correlation functions of these models satisfy linear differential equations. It shows how their explicit solutions are given by using the Coulomb gas method. It also explains how their exact partition functions can be obtained by enforcing the modular invariance of the theory. The chapter also covers null vectors, the Kac determinant, unitary representations, operator product expansion, fusion rules, Verlinde algebra, screening operators, structure constants, the Landau–Ginzburg formulation, modular invariance, and Torus geometry. The appendix covers hypergeometric functions.