English

Heterotic and Type I String Dynamics from Eleven Dimensions

High Energy Physics - Theory 2010-04-07 v2

Abstract

We propose that the ten-dimensional E8×E8E_8\times E_8 heterotic string is related to an eleven-dimensional theory on the orbifold R10×S1/Z2{\bf R}^{10}\times {\bf S}^1/{\bf Z}_2 in the same way that the Type IIA string in ten dimensions is related to R10×S1{\bf R}^{10}\times {\bf S}^1. This in particular determines the strong coupling behavior of the ten-dimensional E8×E8E_8\times E_8 theory. It also leads to a plausible scenario whereby duality between SO(32)SO(32) heterotic and Type I superstrings follows from the classical symmetries of the eleven-dimensional world, just as the SL(2,Z)SL(2,{\bf Z}) duality of the ten-dimensional Type IIB theory follows from eleven-dimensional diffeomorphism invariance.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.hep-th/9510209,
  title  = {Heterotic and Type I String Dynamics from Eleven Dimensions},
  author = {Petr Horava and Edward Witten},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:hep-th/9510209},
  year   = {2010}
}

Comments

27 pages, 2 postscript figures, harvmac, epsf; a reference added

R2 v1 2026-07-22T15:56:50.712Z