Related papers: Heterotic/Type-I Duality in D<10 Dimensions, Thres…
Four-graviton, eight-derivative couplings in the low energy effective action of toroidal type II string compactifications are tightly constrained by U-duality invariance and by supersymmetry. In this note, we revisit earlier proposals for…
We consider two simple examples of multi-instanton configurations in type II 4d N=1 superstring compactifications. The first one involves O(1) and U(1) D2-instantons embedded in T^6/(Z_2 x Z_2') geometry with SU(4) gauge symmetry coming…
We discuss non-perturbative corrections to the gauge kinetic functions in a four-dimensional N=2 gauge theory realized with a system of D7/D3-branes in a compactification of type I' theory on T_4/Z_2 x Z_2. The non-perturbative…
We consider two inequivalent truncations of the super D9--brane: the ``Heterotic'' and the ``Type I'' truncation. Both of them lead to an N=1 nonlinear supersymmetrization of the D=10 cosmological constant. The propagating degrees of…
We review recent progress in determining the effects of D-brane instantons in N=1 supersymmetric compactifications of Type II string theory to four dimensions. We describe the abstract D-brane instanton calculus for holomorphic couplings…
We express the infinite sum of D-fivebrane instanton corrections to ${\cal R}^2$ couplings in ${\cal N}=4$ type I string vacua, in terms of an elliptic index counting 1/2-BPS excitations in the effective $Sp(N)$ brane theory. We compute the…
In this paper we consider Type I string theory compactified on a Z_7 orbifold. The model has N=1 supersymmetry, a U(4) \otimes U(4) \otimes U(4) \otimes SO(8) gauge group, and chiral matter. There are only D9-branes (for which we discuss…
Scattering of fundamental states of type IIB supergravity and superstring theory is discussed at low orders in perturbation theory in the background of a D-instanton. The integration over fermionic zero modes in both the low energy…
We provide some additional evidence in favour of the strong - weak coupling duality between the SO(32) heterotic and type I superstring theories by comparing terms quartic in the gauge field strength in their low-energy effective actions.…
We compute the normalization of the D-instanton amplitudes in type 0B string theory in two dimensions and find perfect agreement with the dual matrix model result.
We review the construction of open descendants of the type IIB superstring on the Z-orbifold. It results in a chiral four-dimensional model with gauge group $SO(8) \otimes U(12)$ and three generations of matter in the $(8,12^*)\oplus…
We consider the cosmological evolution induced by the free energy F of a gas of maximally supersymmetric heterotic strings at finite temperature and weak coupling in dimension D>=4. We show that F, which plays the role of an effective…
It is well-known that the SO(32) and $E_8\times E_8$ heterotic strings can be continuously connected to each other in nine dimensions. Since the strong-coupling duals of these theories are respectively the SO(32) Type I theory and M-theory…
Type IIA string theory compactified on a Calabi-Yau threefold has a hypermultiplet moduli space whose metric is known to receive non-perturbative corrections from Euclidean D2-branes wrapped on 3-cycles. These corrections have been computed…
The D-instanton corrected hypermultiplet moduli space of type II string theory compactified on a Calabi-Yau threefold is known in the type IIA picture to be determined in terms of the generalized Donaldson-Thomas invariants, through a…
We systematically investigate instanton corrections from wrapped Euclidean D-branes to the matter field superpotential of various classes of N=1 supersymmetric D-brane models in four dimensions. Both gauge invariance and the counting of…
We revisit the duality between type I' and heterotic strings in 9 dimensions. We resolve a puzzle about the validity of type I' perturbation theory and show that there are regions in moduli which are not within the reach of type I'…
One-loop corrections to the gauge coupling and the gauge kinetic function in certain classes of four-dimensional D-brane models are computed. It is described how to determine D-instanton corrections to the superpotential and the gauge…
We present a pair of symmetric formulations of the matter sector of the stationary effective action of heterotic string theory that arises after the toroidal compactification of d dimensions. The first formulation is written in terms of a…
We study D-instanton contributions to supergraviton scattering amplitudes in the ten-dimensional type IIB superstring theory beyond the leading non-perturbative order. In particular, we determine the one-D-instanton contribution to maximal…