Related papers: Heterotic - type I superstring duality and low-ene…
We discuss supersymmetry breaking mechanisms at the level of low energy N=1 effective heterotic superstring actions that exhibit $SL(2,Z)_T$ target space modular duality or $SL(2,Z)_S$ strong-weak coupling duality. The allowed…
We derive the actions for type II Green-Schwarz strings up to second order in the fermions, for general bosonic backgrounds. We base our work on the so-called normal coordinate expansion. The resulting actions are $\kappa$-symmetric and,…
We study exhaustively the solution-generating transformations (dualities) that occur in the context of the low-energy effective action of superstring theory. We first consider target-space duality (``T duality'') transformations in absence…
The strong coupling dynamics of string theories in dimension $d\geq 4$ are studied. It is argued, among other things, that eleven-dimensional supergravity arises as a low energy limit of the ten-dimensional Type IIA superstring, and that a…
We construct the duality-symmetric actions for a large class of six-dimensional models describing hierarchies of non-Abelian scalar, vector and tensor fields related to each other by first-order (self-)duality equations that follow from…
We consider the low-energy effective action for the Coulomb phase of an $N = 2$ supersymmetric gauge theory with a rank one gauge group. The $N = 2$ superspace formalism is naturally invariant under an $SL(2, {\bf Z})$ group of duality…
It has been speculated in the literature that the effective actions of string theories at any order of $\alpha'$ should be invariant under the Buscher rules plus their higher covariant derivative corrections. This may be used as a…
We extend the recently constructed double field theory formulation of the low-energy theory of the closed bosonic string to the heterotic string. The action can be written in terms of a generalized metric that is a covariant tensor under…
We investigate the connections between four-dimensional, N=2 M-theory vacua constructed as orbifolds of type II, heterotic, and type I strings. All these models have the same massless spectrum, which contains an equal number of vector…
A detailed understanding of instanton effects for half-BPS couplings is pursued in theories with 16 supersymmetries. In particular, we investigate the duality between heterotic string on $T^4$ and type IIA on $K_3$ at the $T^4/Z_2$ orbifold…
Superstring theories at low energy limit are described by the corresponding supergravities, and their non-perturbative D-brane/O-plane excitations are described by DBI and WZ actions. Higher derivative corrections to these effective actions…
In six spacetime dimensions, the heterotic string is dual to a Type $IIA$ string. On further toroidal compactification to four spacetime dimensions, the heterotic string acquires an $SL(2,\BbbZ)_S$ strong/weak coupling duality and an…
Type-IIB supersymmetric theories have an SL(2,Z) invariance, known as U-duality, which controls the non-perturbative behavior of the theory. Under SL(2,Z) the supercharges are doublets, implying that the bosonic charges would be singlets or…
The R^4 terms in the effective action for M-theory compactified on a two-torus are motivated by combining one-loop results in type II superstring theories with the Sl(2,Z) duality symmetry. The conjectured expression reproduces precisely…
We consider d=4 N=2 supergravity theories which serve as low-energy effective actions for heterotic strings on K_3 \times T^2. At the perturbative level we construct a new version of the heterotic effective action in which the axion has…
We review here some of the checks of string-string duality between N=2, D=4 Heterotic and Type II models. The heterotic low energy field theory is reproduced on the type II side. It is also shown to be a generalization in the string context…
In these lecture notes duality tests and instanton effects in supersymmetric vacua of string theory are discussed. A broad overview of BPS-saturated terms in the effective actions is first given. Their role in testing the consistency of…
The tree-level string effective action is known to contain quartic Riemann terms with coefficient $\zeta(3)\alpha'^3$. In the case of the type II string this is the first $\alpha'$ correction. We use the requirement that the action reduced…
We study possible correlations between properties of the observable and hidden sectors in heterotic string theory. Specifically, we analyze the case of the Z6-II orbifold compactification which produces a significant number of models with…
The non-perturbative equivalence of four-dimensional N=2 superstrings with three vector multiplets and four hypermultiplets is analysed. These models are obtained through freely acting orbifold compactifications from the heterotic, the…