Heterotic String Models on Smooth Calabi-Yau Threefolds

Understand

This thesis contributes with a number of topics to the subject of string compactifications.

• In the first half of the work, I discuss the Hodge plot of Calabi-Yau threefolds realised as hypersurfaces in toric varieties.
• The intricate structure of this plot is explained by the existence of certain webs of elliptic-K3 fibrations.
• Such manifolds arise from reflexive polytopes that can be cut into two parts along K3 slices.