Calabi-Yau Period Geometry and Restricted Moduli in Type II Compactifications

Abstract

The period geometry of Calabi-Yau $n$-folds, characterised by their variations of Hodge structure governed by Griffiths transversality, a graded Frobenius algebra, an integral monodromy and an intriguing arithmetic structure, is analysed for applications in string compactifications and to Feynman integrals. In particular, we consider type IIB flux compactifications on Calabi-Yau three-folds and elliptically fibred four-folds. After constructing suitable three-parameter three-folds, we examine the relation between symmetries of their moduli spaces and flux configurations. Although the fixed point loci of these symmetries are projective special Kähler, we show that a simultaneous stabilisation of multiple moduli on the intersection of these loci need not be guaranteed without the existence of symmetries between them. We furthermore consider F-theory vacua along conifolds and use mirror symmetry to perform a complete analysis of the two-parameter moduli space of an elliptic Calabi-Yau four-fold fibred over $\mathbb{P}^3$. We use the relation between Calabi-Yau period geometries in various dimensions and, in particular, the fact that the antisymmetric products of one-parameter Calabi-Yau three-fold operators yield four-fold operators to establish pairs of flux vacua on the moduli spaces of the three- and four-fold compactifications. We give a splitting of the period matrix into a semisimple and nilpotent part by utilising the Frobenius structure. This helps bringing $ε$-dimensional regulated integration by parts relations between Feynman integrals into $ε$-factorised form and solve them by iterated integrals of the periods.