THE MANY FACES OF THE HETEROTIC VORTEX

We address the problem of non-Abelian super-QCD, with a Fayet-Iliopoulos term, as seen from the vortex worldsheet perspective. Together with the FI term ξ, also a mass µ for the adjoint superfield Φ enters into the game. This mass allows the interpolation between and super-QCD. We distinguish, inside the parameter space spanned by ξ and µ, four different corners where some quantitative statements can be made. We focus on two questions: 1) Is the quantum vortex BPS or non-BPS? 2) What is the phase of the internal non-Abelian moduli? We find that the answer to these questions depends upon the choice of the linear term in the superpotential.

We then address the problem of multiple non-Abelian vortices, in the presence of the deformation. We show that the tension of the "Abelian" vortex is not affected by the heterotic deformation, and in particular it remains BPS-saturated when µ is also switched on.