The Loop Group of E8 and Targets for Spacetime

The dimensional reduction of the E8 gauge theory in eleven dimensions leads to a loop bundle in ten dimensional type IA string theory. We show that the restriction to the Neveu-Schwarz sector leads naturally to a sigma model with target space E8 with the ten-dimensional spacetime as the source. The corresponding bundle has a structure group the group of based loops, whose classifying space we study. We explore some consequences of this proposal such as possible Lagrangians and existence of flat connections.Comment: 17 pages, main section improved, change in title, reference and acknowledgement adde

H(Z/pk)H(\Bbb{Z}/p^k) as a Thom spectrum and topological Hochschild homology

In this short note we study the topological Hoschschild homology of Eilenberg-MacLane spectra for finite cyclic groups. In particular, we show that the Eilenberg-MacLane spectrum H(Z/p^k) is a Thom spectrum for any prime p (except, possibly, when p=k=2) and we also compute its topological Hoschshild homology. This yields a short proof of the results obtained by Brun, and by Pirashvili except for the anomalous case p=k=2