Related papers: 1/4 BPS States and Non-Perturbative Couplings in N…
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…
The 1/8 BPS $D^6\mathcal{R}^4$ coupling in type II string theory compactified on $T^2$ receives contributions from worldsheet instantons and anti-instantons wrapping the $T^2$, up to genus three in string perturbation theory. These involve…
We study the BPS spectrum in $D=4, N=4$ heterotic string compactifications, with some emphasis on intermediate $N=4$ BPS states. These intermediate states, which can become short in $N=2$ compactifications, are crucial for establishing an…
We study supervertices in six dimensional (2,0) supergravity theories, and derive supersymmetry non-renormalization conditions on the 4- and 6-derivative four-point couplings of tensor multiplets. As an application, we obtain exact…
We compute and analyse a variety of four-derivative gravitational terms in the effective action of six- and four-dimensional type II string ground states with N=4 supersymmetry. In six dimensions, we compute the relevant perturbative…
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 lecture we summarize some recent work on the understanding of instanton effects in string theories with 16 supersymmetries. In particular, we consider F^4 couplings using the duality between the heterotic string on T^4 and type IIA…
Considering SO(32) heterotic string theory compactified on a torus of dimension 4 and less, stability of non-supersymmetric states is studied. A non-supersymmetric state with robust stability is constructed, and its exact stability is…
We discuss a string model where a conformal four-dimensional N=2 gauge theory receives corrections to its gauge kinetic functions from "stringy" instantons. These contributions are explicitly evaluated by exploiting the localization…
For the gauge couplings, which arise after toroidal compactification of six-dimensional heterotic N=1 string theories from the T^2 torus, we calculate their one-loop corrections. This is performed by considering string amplitudes involving…
We study BPS saturated one-loop amplitudes in type II string theory compactified on K3 x T^2. The classes of amplitudes we consider are only sensitive to the very basic topological data of the internal K3 manifold. As a consequence, the…
The relation between some perturbative non-BPS states of the heterotic theory on T^4 and non-perturbative non-BPS states of the orbifold limit of type IIA on K3 is exhibited. The relevant states include a non-BPS D-string, and a non-BPS…
We compute the one-loop threshold corrections to the gauge and gravitational couplings for a large class of N=2 non-K\"ahler heterotic compactifications with three-form flux, consisting in principal two-torus bundles over K3 surfaces. We…
In this paper we first address four point functions of string amplitudes in both type IIA and IIB string theories. Making use of non-BPS scattering amplitudes, we explore not only several Bianchi identities that hold in both transverse and…
We analyze N=2 (perturbative and non-perturbative) corrections to the effective theory in type I orbifold models where a dual heterotic description is available. These corrections may play an important role in phenomenological scenarios.…
We study BPS excitations in M5-M2-brane configurations with a compact transverse direction, which are also relevant for type IIa and IIb little string theories. These configurations are dual to a class of toric elliptically fibered…
Certain scattering amplitudes in the gravitational sector of type II string theory on K3 x T^2 are found to be computed by correlation functions of the N=4 topological string. This analysis extends the already known results for K3 by…
In this letter, we investigate corrections to quartic gauge couplings in compactifications of string theories on a 2-torus without vector structure. First, we calculate the threshold corrections to F^4 terms in the heterotic CHL string.…
We study the moduli dependence of a class of couplings in $K3\times T^2$ compactifications of type I string theory, for which one-loop amplitudes can be written in terms of an N=2 supersymmetric index. This index is determined for generic…
Unlike the $\mathcal{R}^4$ and $\nabla^4\mathcal{R}^4$ couplings, whose coefficients are Langlands-Eisenstein series of the U-duality group, the coefficient $\mathcal{E}_{(0,1)}^{(d)}$ of the $\nabla^6\mathcal{R}^4$ interaction in the…