Heterotic strings on G_2 orbifolds
arXiv:1009.4422 · doi:10.1007/JHEP11(2010)115
Abstract
We study compactification of heterotic strings to three dimensions on orbifolds of G_2 holonomy. We consider the standard embedding and show that the gauge group is broken from E_8 x E_8 or SO(32) to F_4 x E_8 or SO(25) respectively. We also compute the spectrum of massless states and compare with the results obtained from reduction of the 10-dimensional fields. Non-standard embeddings are discussed briefly. For type II compactifications we verify that IIB and IIA have equal massless spectrum.
LaTex, 21 pages