Frozen

Abstract

We revisit the duality between ALE singularities in M-theory and 7-branes on a circle in F-theory. We see that a frozen M-theory singularity maps to a circle compactification involving a rotation of the plane transverse to the 7-brane, showing an interesting correspondence between commuting triples in simply-laced groups and Kodaira's classification of singular elliptic fibrations. Our analysis strongly suggests that the O7+ plane is the only completely frozen F-theory singularity.

1+8 pages; v2: minor corrections and improvements in Sec. 2