BSM

Abstract

I will discuss recent work constructing heterotic standard models by compactifying on smooth Calabi-Yau three-folds in the presence of purely Abelian internal gauge fields. The simple construction of these models allows for a large-scale, algorithmic approach to the study of heterotic string vacua. In particular, a systematic search over complete intersection Calabi-Yau manifolds with less than six Kahler parameters has lead to over 1000 such models with exact Standard Model spectra. In addition, the presence of additional global U(1) symmetries, leads to a rich variety of geometric/phenomenological structures and provides a window into a larger moduli space of non-Abelian vector bundles.