A new twist on heterotic string compactifications

Understand

A rich pattern of gauge symmetries is found in the moduli space of heterotic string toroidal compactifications, at fixed points of the T-duality transformations.

• We analyze this pattern for generic tori, and scrutinize in full detail compactifications on a circle, where we find all the maximal gauge symmetry groups and the points where they arise.
• We show the gauge symmetry groups that arise at special points, in figures of slices of the 17-dimensional moduli space of Wilson lines and circle radii.
• We then study the target space realization of the duality symmetry.