6D Heterotic Little String Theories and F-theory Geometry: An Introduction

Abstract: We review here some aspects of our recent works about the geometric engineering of heterotic little string theories using F-theory. Building on the seminal work by Aspinwall and Morrison as well as Intrilligator and Blum, we solve some longstanding open questions thanks to recent progress in our understanding of 6D (1,0) theories and their generalized symmetries. On the geometry side, these systems correspond to non-compact elliptically fibered Calabi-Yau varieties that must admit the structure of an elliptic K3 fibration. From fiberwise F-theory/Heterotic duality the K3 plays a central role - it determines the 6D flavor group, as well as different T-dual LSTs via inequivalent elliptic fibration structures. The geometries we obtain are some finer versions of Kulikov degenerations: the point where the K3 fiber degenerates is the locus where the LST arises. This structure serve on one hand to check our field theory predictions on LST dualities via the match of Coulomb branch dimension, flavor symmetries, and 2-group structure constants, and also on the other hand to deduce novel LST models and their networks of dualities, thus allowing exploring non-geometric Heterotic regimes.