Spacetime supersymmetry in low-dimensional perturbative heterotic compactifications

Understand

We study the constraints of spacetime supersymmetry for perturbative three- and two-dimensional Minkowski vacua of the critical heterotic string.

• Assuming a standard RNS construction of the spacetime supersymmetry generators and a compact unitary internal superconformal worldsheet theory, we describe the worldsheet structures associated to various spacetime supersymmetries.
• In three dimensions we show that there are no CFT surprises: each allowed spacetime supersymmetry is realized by a supergravity compactification.
• As a recent orbifold construction shows, in two dimensions there are more exotic possibilities, and we discuss how these fit into our analysis.