Related papers: String Theory on K3 Surfaces

The SO(32) heterotic string on a K3 surface is analyzed in terms of the dual theory of a type II string (or F-theory) on an elliptically fibred Calabi-Yau manifold. The results are in beautiful agreement with earlier work by Witten using…

In this paper we investigate two stratifications of the moduli space of elliptically fibred K3 surfaces. The first comes from Shimada's classification of connected components of elliptically fibred K3 surfaces and is closely related to the…

We consider a moduli space of lattice polarized K3 surfaces with the additional information of a frame of the trascendental cohomology with respect to the lattice polarization. This moduli space is proved to be quasi-affine, and the…

We give construction of singular K3 surfaces with discriminant 3 and 4 as double coverings over the projective plane. Focusing on the similarities in their branching loci, we can generalize this construction, and obtain a three dimensional…

We propose and give strong evidence for a duality relating Type II theories on Calabi-Yau spaces and heterotic strings on $K3 \times T^2$, both of which have $N=2$ spacetime supersymmetry. Entries in the dictionary relating the dual…

String-string duality dictates that type IIA strings compactified on a K3 surface acquire non-abelian gauge groups for certain values of the K3 moduli. We argue that, contrary to expectation, the theories for which such enhanced gauge…

We study the moduli spaces of elliptic K3 surfaces of Picard number at least 3, i.e. $U\oplus \langle -2k \rangle$-polarized K3 surfaces. Such moduli spaces are proved to be of general type for $k\geq 220$. The proof relies on the…

In this paper, we study the moduli space of quasi-polarized complex K3 surfaces of degree 6 and 8 via geometric invariant theory. The general members in such moduli spaces are complete intersections in projective spaces and we have natural…

We investigate the field theory of strings having as a target space an arbitrary discrete one-dimensional manifold. The existence of the continuum limit is guaranteed if the target space is a Dynkin diagram of a simply laced Lie algebra or…

Mukai proved that the moduli space of simple sheaves on a smooth projective K3 surface is symplectic, and in \cite{FM2} we gave two constructions allowing one to construct new locally closed Lagrangian/isotropic subspaces of the moduli from…

In this note we compare the moduli spaces of the heterotic string compactified on a two-torus and F-Theory compactified on an elliptic K3 surface for the case of an unbroken E8 x E8 gauge group. The explicit map relating the deformation…

We study in detail mirror symmetry for the quartic K3 surface in P3 and the mirror family obtained by the orbifold construction. As explained by Aspinwall and Morrison, mirror symmetry for K3 surfaces can be entirely described in terms of…

We analyze M-theory compactified on K3xK3 with fluxes preserving half the supersymmetry and its F-theory limit, which is dual to an orientifold of the type IIB string on $K3\times T^2/Z_2$. The geometry of attractive K3 surfaces plays a…

We study matrix string scattering amplitudes and matrix string instantons on a marked Riemann surface in the limit of a vanishing string coupling constant. We give an explicit parameterization of the moduli space of such instantons. We also…

We prove that the moduli spaces of K3 surfaces with non-symplectic involutions are unirational. As a by-product we describe configuration spaces of 4<d<9 points in the projective plane as arithmetic quotients of type IV.

We show that for any $N>0$ there exists a natural even $n>N$ such that the discriminant of moduli of K3 surfaces of the degree $n$ is not equal to the set of zeros of any automorphic form on the corresponding IV type domain. We give the…

The correspondence between Matrix String Theory in the strong coupling limit and IIA superstring theory can be shown by means of the instanton solutions of the former. We construct the general instanton solutions of Matrix String Theory…

We briefly review a class of four dimensional $\mathcal N=3$ field theories constructed by taking a quotient of $\mathcal N=4$ SYM with gauge group $U(N)$. The quotient involves a discrete symmetry that only exists for specific, order one,…

We discuss two-dimensional sigma models on moduli spaces of instantons on K3 surfaces. These N=(4,4) superconformal field theories describe the near-horizon dynamics of the D1-D5-brane system and are dual to string theory on AdS_3. We…

A close relationship between K3 surfaces and the Mathieu groups has been established in the last century. Furthermore, it has been observed recently that the elliptic genus of K3 has a natural interpretation in terms of the dimensions of…