Where is the large radius limit?

Abstract

By properly accounting for the invariance of a Calabi-Yau sigma-model under shifts of the $B$-field by integral amounts (analagous to the $θ$-angle in QCD), we show that the moduli spaces of such sigma-models can often be enlarged to include ``large radius limit'' points. In the simplest cases, there are holomorphic coordinates on the enlarged moduli space which vanish at the limit point, and which appear as multipliers in front of instanton contributions to Yukawa couplings. (Those instanton contributions are therefore suppressed at the limit point.) In more complicated cases, the instanton contributions are still suppressed but the enlarged space is singular at the limit point. This singularity may have interesting effects on the effective four-dimensional theory, when the Calabi-Yau is used to compactify the heterotic string.