Closed Superstring in Noncommutative Compact Spacetime

In this paper we study the effects of noncommutativity on a closed superstring propagating in the spacetime that is compactified on tori. The effects of compactification and noncommutativity appear in the momentum, quantization, supercurrent, super-conformal generators and in the boundary state of the closed superstring emitted from a D$_p$-brane with the NS$\otimes$NS background $B$-field.Comment: 11 pages, Latex, no figur

3D gauged supergravity from SU(2) reduction of N=1N=1 6D supergravity

We obtain Yang-Mills $SU(2)\times G$ gauged supergravity in three dimensions from $SU(2)$ group manifold reduction of (1,0) six dimensional supergravity coupled to an anti-symmetric tensor multiplet and gauge vector multiplets in the adjoint of $G$. The reduced theory is consistently truncated to $N=4$ 3D supergravity coupled to $4(1+\textrm{dim}\, G)$ bosonic and $4(1+\textrm{dim}\, G)$ fermionic propagating degrees of freedom. This is in contrast to the reduction in which there are also massive vector fields. The scalar manifold is $\mathbf{R}\times \frac{SO(3,\, \textrm{dim}\, G)}{SO(3)\times SO(\textrm{dim}\, G)}$, and there is a $SU(2)\times G$ gauge group. We then construct $N=4$ Chern-Simons $(SO(3)\ltimes \mathbf{R}^3)\times (G\ltimes \mathbf{R}^{\textrm{dim}G})$ three dimensional gauged supergravity with scalar manifold $\frac{SO(4,\,1+\textrm{dim}G)}{SO(4)\times SO(1+\textrm{dim}G)}$ and explicitly show that this theory is on-shell equivalent to the Yang-Mills $SO(3)\times G$ gauged supergravity theory obtained from the $SU(2)$ reduction, after integrating out the scalars and gauge fields corresponding to the translational symmetries $\mathbf{R}^3\times \mathbf{R}^{\textrm{dim}\, G}$.Comment: 24 pages, no figures, references added and typos correcte

On Subleading Contributions to the AdS/CFT Trace Anomaly

In the context of the AdS/CFT correspondence, we perform a direct computation in AdS_5 supergravity of the trace anomaly of a d=4, N=2 SCFT. We find agreement with the field theory result up to next to leading order in the 1/N expansion. In particular, the order N gravitational contribution to the anomaly is obtained from a Riemann tensor squared term in the 7-brane effective action deduced from heterotic - type I duality. We also discuss, in the AdS/CFT context, the order N corrections to the trace anomaly in d=4, N=4 SCFTs involving SO or Sp gauge groups.Comment: 25 pages, LaTeX, v2: references adde

Duality Symmetries in N=2 Heterotic Superstring

We review the derivation and the basic properties of the perturbative prepotential in N=2 compactifications of the heterotic superstring. We discuss the structure of the perturbative monodromy group and the embedding of rigidly supersymmetric monodromies associated with enhanced gauge groups, at both perturbative and non-perturbative level.Comment: Based on talks presented at several conferences. 12 pages, LaTe

Worldsheet Realization of the Refined Topological String

A worldsheet realization of the refined topological string is proposed in terms of physical string amplitudes that compute generalized N=2 F-terms of the form F_{g,n} W^{2g}Y^{2n} in the effective supergravity action. These terms involve the chiral Weyl superfield W and a superfield Y defined as an N=2 chiral projection of a particular anti-chiral T-bar vector multiplet. In Heterotic and Type I theories, obtained upon compactification on the six-dimensional manifold K3xT2, T is the usual K\"ahler modulus of the T2 torus. These amplitudes are computed exactly at the one-loop level in string theory. They are shown to reproduce the correct perturbative part of the Nekrasov partition function in the field theory limit when expanded around an SU(2) enhancement point of the string moduli space. The two deformation parameters epsilon_- and epsilon_+ of the Omega-supergravity background are then identified with the constant field-strength backgrounds for the anti-self-dual graviphoton and self-dual gauge field of the T-bar vector multiplet, respectively.Comment: 35 pages, typos corrected, published in NP

On the perturbative corrections around D-string instantons

We study ${\cal F}^4$-threshold corrections in an eight dimensional S-dual pair of string theories, as a prototype of dual string vacua with sixteen supercharges. We show that the orbifold CFT description of D-string instantons gives rise to a perturbative expansion similar to the one appearing on the fundamental string side. By an explicit calculation, using the Nambu-Goto action in the static gauge, we show that the first subleading term agrees precisely on the two sides. We then give a general argument to show that the agreement extends to all orders.Comment: 12 page