Orientifolds, hypercharge embeddings and the Standard Model

The embedding of the SM hypercharge into an orientifold gauge group is studied. Possible embeddings are classified, and a systematic construction of bottom-up configurations and top-down orientifold vacua is achieved, solving the tadpole conditions in the context of Gepner orientifolds. Some hypercharge embeddings are strongly preferred compared to others. Configurations with chiral anti-symmetric tensors are suppressed. We find among others, genuine examples of supersymmetric SU(5), flipped SU(5), Pati-Salam and trinification vacua with no chiral exotics.