N=1 Heterotic string vacua from mirror symmetry

Abstract

We review a systematic construction of $\cx N=1$ supersymmetric heterotic string vacua using mirror symmetry. The method provides a large class of explicit solutions for stable, holomorphic vector bundles on Calabi-Yau n-folds Z_n in terms of toric geometry. Phenomenologically interesting compactifications as well as non-perturbative dynamics of the heterotic string are discussed within this framework.

19 pages, Lectures presented at the Winter School on Vector Bundles, Mirror Symmetry, and Lagrangian Submanifolds, Harvard University, January 1999, v2: typos corrected, comments added