The Point of E_8 in F-theory GUTs

Understand

We show that in F-theory GUTs, a natural explanation of flavor hierarchies in the quark and lepton sector requires a single point of E_8 enhancement in the internal geometry, from which all Yukawa couplings originate.

• The monodromy group acting on the seven-brane configuration plays a key role in this analysis.
• Moreover, the E_8 structure automatically leads to the existence of the additional fields and interactions needed for minimal gauge mediated supersymmetry breaking,__and almost nothing else__.
• Surprisingly, we find that in all but one Dirac neutrino scenario the messenger fields in the gauge mediated supersymmetry breaking sector transform as vector-like pairs in the 10 + 10* of SU(5).