From Ramond Fermions to Lame Equations for Orthogonal Curvilinear Coordinates

We show how Ramond free neutral Fermi fields lead to a $\tau$-function theory of BKP type which describes iso-orthogonal deformations of systems of ortogonal curvilinear coordinates. We also provide a vertex operator representation for the classical Ribaucour transformation.Comment: 14 pages, LaTeX2e with AMSLaTeX and Babel package

Hawking Temperature and String Scattering off the 2+1 Black Hole

The 2+1 black hole anti de Sitter solution, obtained as a special limit of the conformally exact $SL(2,R)\otimes SO(1,1)/SO(1,1)$ coset WZW model to all orders in 1/k, is investigated with respect to tachyon scattering. We calculate the off-shell reflection and transmission coefficients and we find an expression for the Hawking temperature, which in a certain limit reduces to the statistical result.Comment: 12 pages Latex + 2 figures (not included), NBI-HE-94-1

The instanton contributions to Yang-Mills theory on the torus: localization, Wilson loops and the perturbative expansion

The instanton contributions to the partition function and to homologically trivial Wilson loops for a U(N) Yang-Mills theory on a torus $T^2$ are analyzed. An exact expression for the partition function is obtained as a sum of contributions localized around the classical solutions of Yang-Mills equations, that appear according to the general classification of Atiyah and Bott. Explicit expressions for the exact Wilson loop averages are obtained when N=2, N=3. For general $N$ the contribution of the zero-instanton sector has been carefully derived in the decompactification limit, reproducing the sum of the perturbative series on the plane, in which the light-cone gauge Yang-Mills propagator is prescribed according to Wu-Mandelstam-Leibbrandt (WML). Agreement with the results coming from $S^2$ is therefore obtained, confirming the truly perturbative nature of the WML computations.Comment: 28 pages, revtex, no figure

Topology at the Planck Length

A basic arbitrariness in the determination of the topology of a manifold at the Planck length is discussed. An explicit example is given of a `smooth' change in topology from the 2-sphere to the 2-torus through a sequence of noncommuting geometries. Applications are considered to the theory of D-branes within the context of the proposed $M$(atrix) theory.Comment: Orsay Preprint 97/34, 17 pages, Late