String Model Building, Reinforcement Learning and Genetic Algorithms

We study possible applications of artificial neural networks to examine the string landscape. Since the field of application is rather versatile, we propose to dynamically evolve these networks via genetic algorithms. This means that we start from basic building blocks and combine them such that the neural network performs best for the application we are interested in. We study three areas in which neural networks can be applied: to classify models according to a fixed set of...

We systematically approach the construction of heterotic E_8 X E_8 Calabi-Yau models, based on compact Calabi-Yau three-folds arising from toric geometry and vector bundles on these manifolds. We focus on a simple class of 101 such three-folds with smooth ambient spaces, on which we perform an exhaustive scan and find all positive monad bundles with SU(N), N=3,4,5 structure groups, subject to the heterotic anomaly cancellation constraint. We find that anomaly-free positive mo...

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. Any two half-polytopes over a given slice can be combined...

The latest techniques from Neural Networks and Support Vector Machines (SVM) are used to investigate geometric properties of Complete Intersection Calabi-Yau (CICY) threefolds, a class of manifolds that facilitate string model building. An advanced neural network classifier and SVM are employed to (1) learn Hodge numbers and report a remarkable improvement over previous efforts, (2) query for favourability, and (3) predict discrete symmetries, a highly imbalanced problem to w...

We undertake a systematic scan of vector bundles over spaces from the largest database of known Calabi-Yau three-folds, in the context of heterotic string compactification. Specifically, we construct positive rank five monad bundles over Calabi-Yau hypersurfaces in toric varieties, with the number of Kahler moduli equal to one, two, and three and extract physically interesting models. We select models which can lead to three families of matter after dividing by a freely-acti...

In this paper, we employ genetic algorithms to explore the landscape of type IIB flux vacua. We show that genetic algorithms can efficiently scan the landscape for viable solutions satisfying various criteria. More specifically, we consider a symmetric $T^{6}$ as well as the conifold region of a Calabi-Yau hypersurface. We argue that in both cases genetic algorithms are powerful tools for finding flux vacua with interesting phenomenological properties. We also compare genetic...

It is well known that there are a great many apparently consistent vacua of string theory. We draw attention to the fact that there appear to be very few Calabi--Yau manifolds with the Hodge numbers h^{11} and h^{21} both small. Of these, the case (h^{11}, h^{21})=(3,3) corresponds to a manifold on which a three generation heterotic model has recently been constructed. We point out also that there is a very close relation between this manifold and several familiar manifolds i...

We briefly review the status of three-family grand unified string models.

We study heterotic model building on 16 specific Calabi-Yau manifolds constructed as hypersurfaces in toric four-folds. These 16 manifolds are the only ones among the more than half a billion manifolds in the Kreuzer-Skarke list with a non-trivial first fundamental group. We classify the line bundle models on these manifolds, both for SU(5) and SO(10) GUTs, which lead to consistent supersymmetric string vacua and have three chiral families. A total of about 29000 models is fo...

We apply deep-learning techniques to the string landscape, in particular, $SO(32)$ heterotic string theory on simply-connected Calabi-Yau threefolds with line bundles. It turns out that three-generation models cluster in particular islands specified by deep autoencoder networks and k-means++ clustering. Especially, we explore mutual relations between model parameters and the cluster with densest three-generation models (called "3-generation island"). We find that the 3-genera...