English

U-Duality Symmetries from the Membrane Worldvolume

High Energy Physics - Theory 2010-11-19 v1

Abstract

We study U-duality symmetries of toroidally compactified M theory from the membrane worldvolume point of view. This is done taking the most general set of bosonic background fields into account. Upon restriction to pure moduli backgrounds, we are able to find the correct U-duality groups and moduli coset parameterizations for dimensions D>6 as symmetries of the membrane worldvolume theory. In particular, we derive the D=8 U-duality group SL(2)xSL(3). For general background fields, we concentrate on the case D=8. Though the SL(2) part of the symmetry appears to be obstructed by certain terms in the equations of motion, we are able to read off the transformation properties for the background fields. These transformations are verified by comparison with 11-dimensional supergravity dimensionally reduced to D=8.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.hep-th/9704178,
  title  = {U-Duality Symmetries from the Membrane Worldvolume},
  author = {Andre Lukas and Burt A. Ovrut},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:hep-th/9704178},
  year   = {2010}
}

Comments

33 pages, Latex