Discrete gauge symmetries in discrete MSSM-like orientifolds

Motivated by the necessity of discrete _ZN${\mathbb{Z}}_N$ symmetries in the MSSM to insure baryon stability, we study the origin of discrete gauge symmetries from open string sector U(1)$U(1)$?s in orientifolds based on rational conformal field theory. By means of an explicit construction, we find an integral basis for the couplings of axions and U(1)$U(1)$ factors for all simple current MIPFs and orientifolds of all 168 Gepner models, a total of 32 990 distinct cases. We discuss how the presence of discrete symmetries surviving as a subgroup of broken U(1)$U(1)$?s can be derived using this basis. We apply this procedure to models with MSSM chiral spectrum, concretely to all known U(3)×U(2)×U(1)×U(1)$U(3)\times U(2)\times U(1)\times U(1)$ and U(3)×Sp(2)×U(1)×U(1)$U(3)\times \mathit{Sp}(2)\times U(1)\times U(1)$ configurations with chiral bi-fundamentals, but no chiral tensors, as well as some SU(5)$\mathit{SU}(5)$ GUT models. We find examples of models with _Z2${\mathbb{Z}}_2$ (R-parity) and _Z3${\mathbb{Z}}_3$ symmetries that forbid certain B and/or L violating MSSM couplings. Their presence is however relatively rare, at the level of a few percent of all cases.