Chirality change in string theory

Abstract

It is known that string theory compactifications leading to low energy effective theories with different chiral matter content (e.g. different numbers of standard model generations) are connected through phase transitions, described by non-trivial quantum fixed point theories. We point out that such compactifications are also connected on a purely classical level, through transitions that can be described using standard effective field theory. We illustrate this with examples, including some in which the transition proceeds entirely through supersymmetric configurations.