Duality, Marginal Perturbations and Gauging

We study duality transformations for two-dimensional sigma models with abelian chiral isometries and prove that generic such transformations are equivalent to integrated marginal perturbations by bilinears in the chiral currents, thus confirming a recent conjecture by Hassan and Sen formulated in the context of Wess-Zumino-Witten models. Specific duality transformations instead give rise to coset models plus free bosons.Comment: 15 page

Duality Versus Supersymmetry and Compactification

We study the interplay between T-duality, compactification and supersymmetry. We prove that when the original configuration has unbroken space-time supersymmetries, the dual configuration also does if a special condition is met: the Killing spinors of the original configuration have to be independent on the coordinate which corresponds to the isometry direction of the bosonic fields used for duality. Examples of ``losers" (T-duals are not supersymmetric) and ``winners" (T-duals are supersymmetric) are given.Comment: LaTeX file, 19 pages, U. of Groningen Report UG-8/94, Stanford U. Report SU-ITP-94-19, QMW College Report QMW-PH-94-1

Black-Hole-Wave Duality in String Theory

Extreme 4-dimensional dilaton black holes embedded into 10-dimensional geometry are shown to be dual to the gravitational waves in string theory. The corresponding gravitational waves are the generalization of pp-fronted waves, called supersymmetric string waves. They are given by Brinkmann metric and the two-form field, without a dilaton. The non-diagonal part of the metric of the dual partner of the wave together with the two-form field correspond to the vector field in 4-dimensional geometry of the charged extreme black holes.Comment: 12 pages, LaTeX, preprint UG-3/94, SU-ITP-94-11, QMW-PH-94-1

A Closed, Expanding Universe in String Theory

We present a conformal field theory -- obtained from a gauged WZW model -- that describes a closed, inhomogeneous expanding and recollapsing universe in $3+1$ dimensions. A possible violation of cosmic censorship is avoided because the universe recollapses just when a naked singularity was about to form. The model has been chosen to have $c=4$ (or $\widehat c=4$ in the supersymmetric case), just like four dimensional Minkowski space.Comment: 10 p

T-duality of anomalous Chern-Simons couplings

It is known that the anomalous D$_p$-brane Chern-Simons couplings are not consistent with the standard rules of T-duality. Using compatibility of these couplings with the linear T-duality transformations, the B-field gauge transformations and with the general coordinate transformations as guiding principles we find new couplings at order $O(\alpha'^2)$ for ${\cal C}^{(p-3)}$, ${\cal C}^{(p-1)}$, ${\cal C}^{(p+1)}$ and ${\cal C}^{(p+3)}$.Comment: 19 pages, Latex file, no figure, the version appears in NP

Abelian duality in WZW models

We analyse abelian T-duality for WZW models of simply-connected groups. We demonstrate that the dual theory is a certain orbifold of the original theory, and check that it is conformally invariant. We determine the spectrum of the dual theory, and show that it agrees with the spectrum of the original theory.Comment: 15 pages, late

Michelson Interferometry with the Keck I Telescope

We report the first use of Michelson interferometry on the Keck I telescope for diffraction-limited imaging in the near infrared JHK and L bands. By using an aperture mask located close to the f/25 secondary, the 10 m Keck primary mirror was transformed into a separate-element, multiple aperture interferometer. This has allowed diffraction-limited imaging of a large number of bright astrophysical targets, including the geometrically complex dust envelopes around a number of evolved stars. The successful restoration of these images, with dynamic ranges in excess of 200:1, highlights the significant capabilities of sparse aperture imaging as compared with more conventional filled-pupil speckle imaging for the class of bright targets considered here. In particular the enhancement of the signal-to-noise ratio of the Fourier data, precipitated by the reduction in atmospheric noise, allows high fidelity imaging of complex sources with small numbers of short-exposure images relative to speckle. Multi-epoch measurements confirm the reliability of this imaging technique and our whole dataset provides a powerful demonstration of the capabilities of aperture masking methods when utilized with the current generation of large-aperture telescopes. The relationship between these new results and recent advances in interferometry and adaptive optics is briefly discussed.Comment: Accepted into Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. To appear in vol. 112. Paper contains 10 pages, 8 figure

T-Duality For String in Horava-Lifshitz Gravity

We continue our study of the Lorentz breaking string theories. These theories are defined as string theory with modified Hamiltonian constraint which breaks the Lorentz symmetry of target space-time. We analyze properties of this theory in the target space-time that possesses isometry along one direction. We also derive the T-duality rules for Lorentz breaking string theories and show that they are the same as that of Buscher's T-duality for the relativistic strings.Comment: 17 pages, references adde

Branes, Times and Dualities

Dualities link M-theory, the 10+1 dimensional strong coupling limit of the IIA string, to other 11-dimensional theories in signatures 9+2 and 6+5, and to type II string theories in all 10-dimensional signatures. We study the Freund-Rubin-type compactifications and brane-type solutions of these theories, and find that branes with various world-volume signatures are possible. For example, the 9+2 dimensional M* theory has membrane-type solutions with world-volumes of signature (3,0) and (1,2), and a solitonic solution with world-volume signature (5,1).Comment: 36 pages, 4 Postscript figures, uses harvmac macr

An Equivalence Between Momentum and Charge in String Theory

It is shown that for a translationally invariant solution to string theory, spacetime duality interchanges the momentum in the symmetry direction and the axion charge per unit length. As one application, we show explicitly that charged black strings are equivalent to boosted (uncharged) black strings. The extremal black strings (which correspond to the field outside of a fundamental macroscopic string) are equivalent to plane fronted waves describing strings moving at the speed of light.Comment: 10 page