F-theory Compactifications for Supersymmetric GUTs

Understand

We construct a family of elliptically fibered Calabi-Yau four-folds Y_4 for F-theory compactifications that realize SU(5) GUTs in the low-energy limit.

• The three-fold base X_3 of these fibrations is almost Fano and satisfies the topological criteria required to ensure that the U(1)_Y gauge boson remains massless, while allowing a decoupling of GUT and Planck scale physics.
• We study generic features of these models and the ability to engineer three chiral generations of MSSM matter.
• Finally, we demonstrate that it is relatively easy to implement the topological conditions required to reproduce certain successful features of local F-theory models, such as the emergence of flavor hierarchies.