On the Hypermultiplet Moduli Space of Heterotic Compactifications with Small Instantons.pdf

a r X i v : h e p - t h / 9 8 1 2 2 5 3 v 2 2 0 J a n 1 9 9 9 hep-th/9812253 December 31, 1998 On the Hypermultiplet Moduli Space of Heterotic Compactifications with Small Instantons Eugene Perevalov 1 Department of Mathematics Harvard University Camdridge, MA 02138, USA ABSTRACT We explore a relation between four-dimensional N = 2 heterotic vacua induced by Mirror Symmetry via Heterotic/Type II duality. It allows us to compute the α′ corrections to the hypermultiplet moduli space of heterotic compactifications on K3×T 2 in the limit of large base of the elliptic K3. We concentrate on the case of point-like instantons on orbifold singularities leading to low-dimensional hypermultiplet moduli spaces. 1 pereval@math.harvard.edu 1. Introduction When a heterotic string is compactified on a K3 × T 2 manifold the result is an N = 2 supergravity coupled to Yang-Mills with matter. The moduli space of the above theory is parametrized by the VEVs of scalar components of vector and hypermultiplets and locally has the following form. M ～= MH ×MV , where MH is a quaternionic manifold and MV is a special Ka?hler manifold. The geometry of the moduli space encodes the information about the effective low-energy theory and is of primary interest. In general, it receives corrections of two types: due to finite size of the compactification manifold and to nonzero string coupling (α′ and gs corrections, respectively). However, since the string coupling is determined by the VEV of the dilaton which is a scalar component of a vector multiplet in heterotic compactifications, MH is unaffected by gs corrections. MV on the other hand is expected to be corrected by the quantum effects. What allows one to compute these corrections and obtain exact expressions for the geometry of MV are two kinds of dualities believed to hold in string theory: Mirror Symmetry (see e.g.,[1] and Heterotic/Type II duality[2,3]. Heterotic/Type II duality relates heterotic strings compactified on K3× T 2 to Type