Universality of Gauge Thresholds in Non-Supersymmetric Heterotic Vacua

Abstract

We compute one-loop threshold corrections to non-abelian gauge couplings in four-dimensional heterotic vacua with spontaneously broken $\mathcal{N}=2\to \mathcal{N}=0$ supersymmetry, obtained as Scherk-Schwarz reductions of six-dimensional K3 compactifications. As expected, the gauge thresholds are no-longer BPS protected, and receive contributions also from the excitations of the RNS sector. Remarkably, the difference of thresholds for non-abelian gauge couplings is BPS saturated and exhibits a universal behaviour independently of the orbifold realisation of K3. Moreover, the thresholds and their difference develop infra-red logarithmic singularities whenever charged BPS-like states, originating from the twisted RNS sector, become massless at special loci in the classical moduli space.

12 pages, corrected eqs. 3.19, 3.20 and 3.23 and an overall factor of 2 in all thresholds

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• $\mathcal{N}=2$ heterotic string compactifications on orbifolds of $K3\times T^2$
• Non-SUSY Heterotic String Vacua of Gepner Models with Vanishing Cosmological Constant
• Notes on Vanishing Cosmological Constant without Bose-Fermi Cancellation
• Non-SUSY Gepner Models with Vanishing Cosmological Constant
• GUT Scale Unification in Heterotic Strings