English

Heterotic twistor-string theory

High Energy Physics - Theory 2008-11-26 v1

Abstract

We reformulate twistor-string theory as a heterotic string based on a twisted (0,2) model. The path integral localizes on holomorphic maps, while the (0,2) moduli naturally correspond to the states of N=4 super Yang-Mills and conformal supergravity under the Penrose transform. We show how the standard twistor-string formulae of scattering amplitudes as integrals over the space of curves in supertwistor space may be obtained from our model. The corresponding string field theory gives rise to a twistor action for N=4 conformal supergravity coupled to super Yang-Mills. The model helps to explain how the twistor-strings of Witten and Berkovits are related and clarifies various aspects of each of these models.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0708.2276,
  title  = {Heterotic twistor-string theory},
  author = {Lionel Mason and David Skinner},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0708.2276},
  year   = {2008}
}

Comments

45 pages

R2 v1 2026-06-21T09:08:08.317Z