On the Monodromies of N=2 Supersymmetric Yang-Mills Theory

We review the generalization of the work of Seiberg and Witten on N=2 supersymmetric SU(2) Yang-Mills theory to SU(n) gauge groups. The quantum moduli spaces of the effective low energy theory parametrize a special family of hyperelliptic genus n-1 Riemann surfaces. We discuss the massless spectrum and the monodromies.Comment: 15p, harvmac/lanlmac with hyperlinks, 4 uuencoded compressed postscript figures appende

Elliptic Genera and the Landau-Ginzburg Approach to N=2 Orbifolds

We compute the elliptic genera of orbifolds associated with $N=2$ super--conformal theories which admit a Landau-Ginzburg description. The identification of the elliptic genera of the macroscopic Landau-Ginzburg orbifolds with those of the corresponding microscopic $N=2$ orbifolds further supports the conjectured identification of these theories. For $SU(N)$ Kazama-Suzuki models the orbifolds are associated with certain \IZ_p subgroups of the various coset factors. Based on our approach we also conjecture the existence of "$E$-type" variants of these theories, their elliptic genera and the corresponding Landau-Ginzburg potentials.Comment: 27p, uses harvmac (b). negligible change: suppression of the draftmod

On Heterotic Orbifolds, M Theory and Type I' Brane Engineering

Horava--Witten M theory -- heterotic string duality poses special problems for the twisted sectors of heterotic orbifolds. In [1] we explained how in M theory the twisted states couple to gauge fields apparently living on M9 branes at both ends of the eleventh dimension at the same time. The resolution involves 7D gauge fields which live on fixed planes of the (T^4/Z_N) x (S^1/Z_2) x R^{5,1} orbifold and lock onto the 10D gauge fields along the intersection planes. The physics of such intersection planes does not follow directly from the M theory but there are stringent kinematic constraints due to duality and local consistency, which allowed us to deduce the local fields and the boundary conditions at each intersection. In this paper we explain various phenomena at the intersection planes in terms of duality between HW and type I' superstring theories. The orbifold fixed planes are dual to stacks of D6 branes, the M9 planes are dual to O8 orientifold planes accompanied by D8 branes, and the intersections are dual to brane junctions. We engineer several junction types which lead to distinct patterns of 7D/10D gauge field locking, 7D symmetry breaking and/or local 6D fields. Another aspect of brane engineering is putting the junctions together; sometimes, the combined effect is rather spectacular from the HW point of view and the quantum numbers of some twisted states have to `bounce' off both ends of the eleventh dimension before their heterotic identity becomes clear. Some models involve D6/O8 junctions where the string coupling diverges towards the orientifold plane. We use the heterotic-HW-I' duality to predict what should happen at such junctions.Comment: 118 pages, uses phyzzx, color printer advice

Wilson Loops in the Large N Limit at Finite Temperature

Using a proposal of Maldacena we compute in the framework of the supergravity description of N coincident D3 branes the energy of a quark anti-quark pair in the large N limit of U(N) N=4 SYM in four dimensions at finite temperature.Comment: 7 pages, LaTeX2e, 5 eps figures; references added and corrected, typos correcte