English

Topological Superconductors on Superstring Worldsheets

High Energy Physics - Theory 2020-08-05 v2 Strongly Correlated Electrons

Abstract

We point out that different choices of Gliozzi-Scherk-Olive (GSO) projections in superstring theory can be conveniently understood by the inclusion of fermionic invertible phases, or equivalently topological superconductors, on the worldsheet. This allows us to find that the unoriented Type 0\rm 0 string theory with Ω2=(1)f\Omega^2=(-1)^{\sf f} admits different GSO projections parameterized by nn mod 8, depending on the number of Kitaev chains on the worldsheet. The presence of nn boundary Majorana fermions then leads to the classification of D-branes by KOn(X)KOn(X)KO^n(X)\oplus KO^{-n}(X) in these theories, which we also confirm by the study of the D-brane boundary states. Finally, we show that there is no essentially new GSO projection for the Type I\rm I worldsheet theory by studying the relevant bordism group, which classifies corresponding invertible phases. This paper provides the details for the results announced in the letter \cite{Kaidi:2019pzj}.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1911.11780,
  title  = {Topological Superconductors on Superstring Worldsheets},
  author = {Justin Kaidi and Julio Parra-Martinez and Yuji Tachikawa and with a mathematical appendix by Arun Debray},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1911.11780},
  year   = {2020}
}

Comments

75 pages, 5 figures, v2: new appendix by additional author, published version

R2 v1 2026-06-23T12:28:10.396Z