Open string models with Scherk-Schwarz SUSY breaking and localized anomalies

Abstract

We study examples of chiral four-dimensional IIB orientifolds with Scherk--Schwarz supersymmetry breaking, based on freely acting orbifolds. We construct a new Z3xZ3' model, containing only D9-branes, and rederive from a more geometric perspective the known Z6'xZ2' model, containing D9, D5 and \bar D 5 branes. The cancellation of anomalies in these models is then studied locally in the internal space. These are found to cancel through an interesting generalization of the Green--Schwarz mechanism involving twisted Ramond--Ramond axions and 4-forms. The effect of the latter amounts to local counterterms from a low-energy effective field theory point of view. We also point out that the number of spontaneously broken U(1) gauge fields is in general greater than what expected from a four-dimensional analysis of anomalies.

Comments: v2: 28 pages, references added; v3: version to appear in Nucl.Phys. B