Gauge Fluxes in F-theory Compactifications

In this thesis, we study the geometry and physics of gauge fluxes in F-theory compactifications to four dimensions. Motivated by the phenomenological requirement of chiral matter in realistic model building scenarios, we develop methods for a systematic analysis of primary vertical G4-fluxes on torus-fibred Calabi-Yau fourfolds. In particular, we extend the well-known description of fluxes on elliptic fibrations with sections to the more general set-up of genus-one fibrations with multi-sections. The latter are known to give rise to discrete abelian symmetries in F-theory. We test our proposal for constructing fluxes in such geometries on an explicit model with SU(5)xZ2 symmetry, which is connected to an ordinary elliptic fibration with SU(5)xU(1) symmetry by a conifold transition. With our methods we systematically verify anomaly cancellation and tadpole matching in both models. Along the way, we find a novel way of understanding anomaly cancellation in 4D F-theory in purely geometric terms. This observation is further strengthened by a similar analysis of an SU(3)xSU(2)xU(1)xU(1) model. The obvious connection of this particular model with the Standard Model is then investigated in a more phenomenologically motivated survey. There, we will first provide possible matchings of the geometric spectrum with the Standard Model states, which highlights the role of the additional U(1) factor as a selection rule. In a second step, we then utilise our novel methods on flux computations to set up a search algorithm for semi-realistic chiral spectra in our Standard- Model-like fibrations over specific base manifolds B. As a demonstration, we scan over three choices P3, Bl1P3 and Bl2P3 for the base. As a result we find a consistent flux that gives the chiral Standard Model spectrum with a vector-like triplet exotic, which may be lifted by a Higgs mechanism