Heterotic String Models

Of particular interest among the five different types of consistent superstrings in ten dimensions are those yielding GUT (Grand Unified Theories) gauge groups which, by construction, contain as a subgroup the Standard Model gauge group. For phenomenological reasons it is therefore interesting to study heterotic strings with gauge group E8*E8 which, by breaking one of the E8 factors, yield different GUT gauge groups as well as the Standard Model gauge group as subgroups. We will investigate heterotic string models with N = (0, 2) world sheet supersymmetry and GUT gauge group SO(10). In this context we discuss the heterotic (0, 2) conformal field theory/geometry correspondence which relates string models on Calabi-Yau manifolds to certain conformal field theories. This document is composed of the slides of the presentation. (author)