English

Four Dimensional String/String/String Triality

High Energy Physics - Theory 2009-10-28 v2

Abstract

In six spacetime dimensions, the heterotic string is dual to a Type IIAIIA string. On further toroidal compactification to four spacetime dimensions, the heterotic string acquires an SL(2,\BbbZ)SSL(2,\BbbZ)_S strong/weak coupling duality and an SL(2,\BbbZ)T×SL(2,\BbbZ)USL(2,\BbbZ)_T \times SL(2,\BbbZ)_U target space duality acting on the dilaton/axion, complex Kahler form and the complex structure fields S,T,US,T,U respectively. Strong/weak duality in D=6D=6 interchanges the roles of SS and TT in D=4D=4 yielding a Type IIAIIA string with fields T,S,UT,S,U. This suggests the existence of a third string (whose six-dimensional interpretation is more obscure) that interchanges the roles of SS and UU. It corresponds in fact to a Type IIBIIB string with fields U,T,SU,T,S leading to a four-dimensional string/string/string triality. Since SL(2,\BbbZ)SSL(2,\BbbZ)_S is perturbative for the Type IIBIIB string, this D=4D=4 triality implies SS-duality for the heterotic string and thus fills a gap left by D=6D=6 duality. For all three strings the total symmetry is SL(2,\BbbZ)S×O(6,22;\BbbZ)TUSL(2,\BbbZ)_S \times O(6,22;\BbbZ)_{TU}. The O(6,22;\BbbZ)O(6,22;\BbbZ) is {\it perturbative} for the heterotic string but contains the conjectured {\it non-perturbative} SL(2,\BbbZ)XSL(2,\BbbZ)_X, where XX is the complex scalar of the D=10D=10 Type IIBIIB string. Thus four-dimensional triality also provides a (post-compactification) justification for this conjecture. We interpret the N=4N=4 Bogomol'nyi spectrum from all three points of view. In particular we generalize the Sen-Schwarz formula for short multiplets to include intermediate multiplets also and discuss the corresponding black hole spectrum both for the N=4N=4 theory and for a truncated SS--TT--UU symmetric N=2N=2 theory. Just as the first two strings are described by the four-dimensional {\it elementary} and {\it dual solitonic} solutions, so the

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.hep-th/9508094,
  title  = {Four Dimensional String/String/String Triality},
  author = {M. J. Duff and James T. Liu and J. Rahmfeld},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:hep-th/9508094},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

36 pages, Latex, 2 figures, some references changed, minor changes in formulas and tables; to appear in Nucl. Phys. B