F-theory GUTs with U(1) symmetries: Generalities and survey

We study the structure of SU(5) F-theory grand unified theory (GUT) models that engineer additional U(1) symmetries. These are highly constrained by a set of relations observed by Dudas and Palti (DP) that originate from the physics of four-dimensional anomaly cancellation. Using the DP relations, we describe a general tension between unification and the suppression of dimension 5 proton decay when one or more U(1)'s are Peccei-Quinn (PQ) symmetries and hypercharge flux is used to break the SU(5) GUT group. We then specialize to spectral cover models, whose global completions in F theory we know how to construct. In that setting, we provide a technical derivation of the DP relations, construct spectral covers that yield all possible solutions to them, and provide a complete survey of spectral cover models for SU(5) GUTs that exhibit two U(1) symmetries.