Generalized mirror symmetry and trace anomalies

We consider compactification of M-theory on X7 with betti numbers (b_0, b_1, b_2, b_3, b_3, b_2, b_1, b_0) and define a generalized mirror symmetry (b_0, b_1, b_2, b_3) goes to (b_0, b_1, b_2 -rho/2, b_3+rho/2)$ under which rho = 7b_0-5b_1+3b_2 -b_3 changes sign. Generalized self-mirror theories with rho=0 have massless sectors with vanishing trace anomaly (before dualization). Examples include pure supergravity with N \geq 4 and supergravity plus matter with N \leq 4.Comment: 19 pages late

Real Special Geometry

We give a coordinate-free description of real manifolds occurring in certain four dimensional supergravity theories with antisymmetric tensor fields. The relevance of the linear multiplets in the compactification of string and five-brane theories is also discussed.Comment: 10 pgs (TeX with Harvmac), CERN-TH.7211/94, UCLA/94/TEP/14, POLFIS-TH.01/9

A Comment on String Solitons

We derive an exact string-like soliton solution of D=10 heterotic string theory. The solution possesses $SU(2)\times SU(2)$ instanton structure in the eight-dimensional space transverse to the worldsheet of the soliton.Comment: 4 page

Putting String/Fivebrane Duality to the Test

According to string/fivebrane duality, the Green-Schwarz factorization of the $D=10$ spacetime anomaly polynomial $I_{12}$ into $X_4\, X_8$ means that just as $X_4$ is the anomaly polynomial of the $d=2$ string worldsheet so $X_8$ should be the anomaly polynomial of the $d=6$ fivebrane worldvolume. To test this idea we perform a fivebrane calculation of $X_8$ and find perfect agreement with the string one--loop result.Comment: 14 pages, CERN TH-6614/92, CTP-TAMU 60/9

Twenty Years of the Weyl Anomaly

In 1973 two Salam prot\'{e}g\'{e}s (Derek Capper and the author) discovered that the conformal invariance under Weyl rescalings of the metric tensor $g_{\mu\nu}(x)\rightarrow\Omega^2(x)g_{\mu\nu}(x)$ displayed by classical massless field systems in interaction with gravity no longer survives in the quantum theory. Since then these Weyl anomalies have found a variety of applications in black hole physics, cosmology, string theory and statistical mechanics. We give a nostalgic review. (Talk given at the {\it Salamfest}, ICTP, Trieste, March 1993.)Comment: 43 page

The GS String Action on AdS(3)xS(3) with Ramond-Ramond Charge

We derive the classical kappa-symmetric Type IIB string action on AdS(3) x S(3) by employing the SU(1,1|2)^2 algebra. We then gauge fix kappa-symmetry in the background adapted Killing spinor gauge and present the action in a very simple form.Comment: 19 pages, LaTe

Vacuum interpolation in supergravity via super p-branes

We show that many of the recently proposed supersymmetric p-brane solutions of d=10 and d=11 supergravity have the property that they interpolate between Minkowski spacetime and a compactified spacetime, both being supersymmetric supergravity vacua. Our results imply that the effective worldvolume action for small fluctuations of the super p-brane is a supersingleton field theory for $(adS)_{p+2}$, as has been often conjectured in the past.Comment: 8p

Supersymmetry Enhancement of D-p-branes and M-branes

We examine the supersymmetry of classical D-brane and M-brane configurations and explain the dependence of Killing spinors on coordinates. We find that one half supersymmetry is broken in the bulk and that supersymmetry near the D-brane horizon is restored for $p\leq 3$, for solutions in the stringy frame, but only for $p=3$ in the10d canonical frame. We study the enhancement for the case of four intersecting D-3-branes in 10 dimensions and the implication of this for the size of the infinite throat of the near horizon geometry in non-compactified theory. We found some indications of universality of near horizon geometries of various intersecting brane configurations.Comment: 18 pages, late

Reducing SS- duality to TT- duality

The infrared limit of $D=4,~~N=4$ Yang-Mills theory with compact gauge group $G$ compactified on a two-torus is governed by an effective superconformal field theory. We conjecture that this is a certain orbifold involving the maximal torus of $G$. Yang-Mills $S$-duality makes predictions for all correlators of this effective conformal field theory. These predictions are shown to be implied by the standard $T$-duality of the conformal field theory. Consequently, Montonen-Olive duality between electric and magnetic states reduces to the standard two-dimensional duality between momentum and winding states.Comment: 13 pages, harvmac, no figures. (Some Comments added. Some references added.

Exact Absorption Probability in the Extremal Six-Dimensional Dyonic String Background

We show that the minimally coupled massless scalar wave equation in the background of an six-dimensional extremal dyonic string (or D1-D5 brane intersection) is exactly solvable, in terms of Mathieu functions. Using this fact, we calculate absorption probabilities for these scalar waves, and present the explicit results for the first few low energy corrections to the leading-order expressions. For a specific tuning of the dyonic charges one can reach a domain where the low energy absorption probability goes to zero with inverse powers of the logarithm of the energy. This is a dividing domain between the regime where the low energy absorption probability approaches zero with positive powers of energy and the regime where the probability is an oscillatory function of the logarithm of the energy. By the conjectured AdS/CFT correspondence, these results shed novel light on the strongly coupled two-dimensional field theory away from its infrared conformally invariant fixed point (the strongly coupled ``non-critical'' string).Comment: Latex (3 times), 23 page