BPS jumping loci and special cycles

Abstract

We study BPS jumping loci, or the subloci in moduli spaces of supersymmetric string vacua where BPS states come into existence discontinuously. This phenomenon is distinct from wall-crossing. We argue that these loci should be thought of as special cycles in the sense of Noether-Lefschetz loci or special Shimura subvarieties, which are indeed examples of BPS jumping loci for certain string compactifications. We use the Hodge-elliptic genus as an informative tool, suggesting that our work can be extended to understand the jumping behavior of motivic Donaldson-Thomas invariants.