English

Orientifolds and K-theory

High Energy Physics - Theory 2024-10-22 v1 K-Theory and Homology

Abstract

Recently it has been shown that D-branes in orientifolds are not always described by equivariant Real K-theory. In this paper we define a previously unstudied twisted version of equivariant Real K-theory which gives the D-brane spectrum for such orientifolds. We find that equivariant Real K-theory can be twisted by elements of a generalised group cohomology. This cohomology classifies all orientifolds just as group cohomology classifies all orbifolds. As an example we consider the Ω×\I4\Omega\times\I_4 orientifolds. We completely determine the equivariant orthogonal K-theory KO\Zop2(Rp,q)KO_{\Zop_2}(\R^{p,q}) and analyse the twisted versions. Agreement is found between K-theory and Boundary Confromal Field Theory (BCFT) results for both integrally- and torsion-charged D-branes.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.hep-th/0206158,
  title  = {Orientifolds and K-theory},
  author = {V. Braun and B. Stefanski},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:hep-th/0206158},
  year   = {2024}
}

Comments

26 pages

R2 v1 2026-07-22T15:11:34.265Z