Gauge symmetry enhancing-breaking from a Double Field Theory perspective

Abstract

Gauge symmetry enhancing, at specific points of the compactification space, is a distinguished feature of string theory. In this work we discuss the breaking of such symmetries with tools provided by Double Field Theory (DFT). As a main guiding example we discuss the bosonic string compactified on a circle where, at the self-dual radio the generic U(1) × U(1) gauge symmetry becomes enhanced to SU(2) × SU(2). We show that the enhancing-breaking of the gauge symmetry can be understood through a dependence of gauge structure constants (fluxes in DFT) on moduli. This dependence, in DFT description, is encoded in the generalized tangent frame of the double space. The explicit T-duality invariant formulation provided by DFT proves to be a helpful ingredient. The link with string theory results is discussed and generalizations to generic tori compactifications are addressed.