The Non-Perturbative SO(32) Heterotic String

The SO(32) heterotic string can be obtained from the type IIB string by gauging a discrete symmetry that acts as $(-1)^{F_L}$ on the perturbative string states and reverses the parity of the D-string. Consistency requires the presence of 32 NS 9-branes -- the S-duals of D9-branes -- which give SO(32) Chan-Paton factors to open D-strings. At finite string coupling, there are SO(32) charges tethered to the heterotic string world-sheet by open D-strings. At zero-coupling, the D-string tension becomes infinite and the SO(32) charges are pulled onto the world-sheet, and give the usual SO(32) world-sheet currents of the heterotic string.Comment: 12 Pages, Tex, Phyzzx Macr

String-String Duality in Ten Dimensions

The heterotic string occurs as a soliton of the type I superstring in ten dimensions, supporting the conjecture that these two theories are equivalent. The conjecture that the type IIB string is self-dual, with the strong coupling dynamics described by a dual type IIB theory, is supported by the occurrence of the dual string as a Ramond-Ramond soliton of the weakly-coupled theory.Comment: 14 pages, phyzz

Unity of Superstring Dualities

The effective action for type II string theory compactified on a six torus is $N=8$ supergravity, which is known to have an $E_{7}$ duality symmetry. We show that this is broken by quantum effects to a discrete subgroup, $E_7(\Z)$, which contains both the T-duality group $SO(6,6;\Z)$ and the S-duality group $SL(2;\Z)$. We present evidence for the conjecture that $E_7(\Z)$ is an exact \lq U-duality' symmetry of type II string theory. This conjecture requires certain extreme black hole states to be identified with massive modes of the fundamental string. The gauge bosons from the Ramond-Ramond sector couple not to string excitations but to solitons. We discuss similar issues in the context of toroidal string compactifications to other dimensions, compactifications of the type II string on $K_3\times T^2$ and compactifications of eleven-dimensional supermembrane theory.Comment: 45 pages. Some minor corrections made and some references adde

Gravitational Duality, Branes and Charges

It is argued that D=10 type II strings and M-theory in D=11 have D-5 branes and 9-branes that are not standard p-branes coupled to anti-symmetric tensors. The global charges in a D-dimensional theory of gravity consist of a momentum $P_M$ and a dual D-5 form charge $K_{M_1...M_{D-5}}$, which is related to the NUT charge. On dimensional reduction, P gives the electric charge and K the magnetic charge of the graviphoton. The charge K is constructed and shown to occur in the superalgebra and BPS bounds in $D\ge 5$, and leads to a NUT-charge modification of the BPS bound in D=4. $K$ is carried by Kaluza-Klein monopoles, which can be regarded as D-5 branes. Supersymmetry and U-duality imply that the type IIB theory has (p,q) 9-branes. Orientifolding with 32 (0,1) 9-branes gives the type I string, while modding out by a related discrete symmetry with 32 (1,0) 9-branes gives the SO(32) heterotic string. Symmetry enhancement, the effective world-volume theories and the possibility of a twelve dimensional origin are discussed.Comment: 54 pages, TeX, Phyzzx Macro. Added referenc

Pseudo-Duality

Proper symmetries act on fields while pseudo-symmetries act on both fields and coupling constants. We identify the pseudo-duality groups that act as symmetries of the equations of motion of general systems of scalar and vector fields and apply our results to $N=2,4$ and $8$ supergravity theories. We present evidence that the pseudo-duality group for both the heterotic and type II strings toroidally compactified to four dimensions is $Sp(56;\Z)\times D$, where $D$ is a certain subgroup of the diffeomorphism group of the scalar field target space. This contains the conjectured heterotic $S\times T$ or type II $U$ proper duality group as a subgroup.Comment: 13 pages, phyzzx macr

E(7) Symmetric Area of the Black Hole Horizon

Extreme black holes with 1/8 of unbroken N=8 supersymmetry are characterized by the non-vanishing area of the horizon. The central charge matrix has four generic eigenvalues. The area is proportional to the square root of the invariant quartic form of $E_{7(7)}$. It vanishes in all cases when 1/4 or 1/2 of supersymmetry is unbroken. The supergravity non-renormalization theorem for the area of the horizon in N=8 case protects the unique U-duality invariant.Comment: a reference added, misprints remove

Solitonic Strings and BPS Saturated Dyonic Black Holes

We consider a six-dimensional solitonic string solution described by a conformal chiral null model with non-trivial $N=4$ superconformal transverse part. It can be interpreted as a five-dimensional dyonic solitonic string wound around a compact fifth dimension. The conformal model is regular with the short-distance (`throat') region equivalent to a WZW theory. At distances larger than the compactification scale the solitonic string reduces to a dyonic static spherically-symmetric black hole of toroidally compactified heterotic string. The new four-dimensional solution is parameterised by five charges, saturates the Bogomol'nyi bound and has nontrivial dilaton-axion field and moduli fields of two-torus. When acted by combined T- and S-duality transformations it serves as a generating solution for all the static spherically-symmetric BPS-saturated configurations of the low-energy heterotic string theory compactified on six-torus. Solutions with regular horizons have the global space-time structure of extreme Reissner-Nordstrom black holes with the non-zero thermodynamic entropy which depends only on conserved (quantised) charge vectors. The independence of the thermodynamic entropy on moduli and axion-dilaton couplings strongly suggests that it should have a microscopic interpretation as counting degeneracy of underlying string configurations. This interpretation is supported by arguments based on the corresponding six-dimensional conformal field theory. The expression for the level of the WZW theory describing the throat region implies a renormalisation of the string tension by a product of magnetic charges, thus relating the entropy and the number of oscillations of the solitonic string in compact directions.Comment: 27 Pages, uses RevTeX (solution for the axion field corrected, erratum to appear in Phys. Rev. D

Massive IIA flux compactifications and U-dualities

We attempt to find a rigorous formulation for the massive type IIA orientifold compactifications of string theory introduced in hep-th/0505160. An approximate double T-duality converts this background into IIA string theory on a twisted torus, but various arguments indicate that the back reaction of the orientifold on this geometry is large. In particular, an AdS calculation of the entropy suggests a scaling appropriate for N M2-branes, in a certain limit of the compactification, though not the one studied in hep-th/0505160. The M-theory lift of this specific regime is not 4 dimensional. We suggest that the generic limit of the background corresponds to a situation analogous to F-theory, where the string coupling is small in some regions of a compact geometry, and large in others, so that neither a long wavelength 11D SUGRA expansion, nor a world sheet expansion exists for these compactifications. We end with a speculation on the nature of the generic compactification.Comment: JHEP3 LaTeX - 34 pages - 3 figures; v2: Added references; v3: mistake in entropy scaling corrected, major changes in conclusions; v4: changed claims about original DeWolfe et al. setup, JHEP versio

Superfield T-duality rules

A geometric treatment of T-duality as an operation which acts on differential forms in superspace allows us to derive the complete set of T-duality transformation rules which relate the superfield potentials of D=10 type IIA supergravity with those of type IIB supergravity including Ramond-Ramond superfield potentials and fermionic supervielbeins. We show that these rules are consistent with the superspace supergravity constraints.Comment: 24 pages, latex, no figures. V2 misprints corrected. V3. One reference ([30]) and a comment on it ('Notice added') on p. 19 adde

On BPS preons, generalized holonomies and D=11 supergravities

We develop the BPS preon conjecture to analyze the supersymmetric solutions of D=11 supergravity. By relating the notions of Killing spinors and BPS preons, we develop a moving G-frame method (G=GL(32,R), SL(32,R) or Sp(32,R)) to analyze their associated generalized holonomies. As a first application we derive here the equations determining the generalized holonomies of k/32 supersymmetric solutions and, in particular, those solving the necessary conditions for the existence of BPS preonic (31/32) solutions of the standard D=11 supergravity. We also show that there exist elementary preonic solutions, i.e. solutions preserving 31 out of 32 supersymmetries in a Chern--Simons type supergravity. We present as well a family of worldvolume actions describing the motion of pointlike and extended BPS preons in the background of a D'Auria-Fre type OSp(1|32)-related supergravity model. We discuss the possible implications for M-theory.Comment: 11 pages, RevTeX Typos corrected, a short note and references adde