Non-Higgsable QCD and the Standard Model Spectrum in F-theory

Understand

Many four-dimensional supersymmetric compactifications of F-theory contain gauge groups that cannot be spontaneously broken through geometric deformations.

• These "non-Higgsable clusters" include realizations of $SU(3)$, $SU(2)$, and $SU(3) \times SU(2)$, but no $SU(n)$ gauge groups or factors with $n> 3$.
• We study possible realizations of the standard model in F-theory that utilize non-Higgsable clusters containing $SU(3)$ factors and show that there are three distinct possibilities.
• In one, fields with the non-abelian gauge charges of the standard model matter fields are localized at a single locus where non-perturbative $SU(3)$ and $SU(2)$ seven-branes intersect; cancellation of gauge anomalies implies that the simplest four-dimensional chiral $SU(3)\times SU(2)\times U(1)$ model that may arise in this context exhibits standard model families.