S-Duality in Gauge Theories as a Canonical Transformation

We show that S-duality in four dimensional non-supersymmetric abelian gauge theories can be formulated as a canonical transformation in the phase space of the theory. This transformation is the usual interchange between electric and magnetic degrees of freedom. It is shown that in phase space the modular anomaly emerges as the result of integrating out the momenta degrees of freedom. The generalization to d dimensional abelian gauge theories of p forms is also considered. In the case of non-abelian gauge theories a careful analysis of the constraints implied by the canonical transformation shows that it does not relate Yang-Mills theories with inverted couplings. In fact the dual theory is shown to be of Freedman- Townsend's type, also with ${\tilde \tau}=-1/\tau$, $\tau=\frac{\theta}{2\pi}+\frac{4\pi i}{g^2}$.Comment: 13 pages, latex file, important changes in the non-abelian case. Some references adde

Brane Actions and String Dualities

An effective action for the M9-brane is proposed. We study its relation with other branes via dualities. Among these, we find actions for branes which are not suggested by the central charges of the Type II superalgebras.Comment: 11 pages, LaTeX, 1 figure; To be published in the proceedings of the TMR-meeting "Quantum Aspects of Gauge Theories, Supersymmetry and Unification", Corfu, Greece, September 199

Type II Branes from Brane-Antibrane in M-theory

We discuss in a systematic way all the possible realisations of branes of M and type II theories as topological solitons of a brane-antibrane system. The classification of all the possibilities, consistent with the structure of the theory, is achieved by studying the Wess-Zumino terms in the worldvolume effective actions of the branes of M-theory and their reductions.Comment: 19 pages, LaTeX file no figure

S-Duality and Brane Descent Relations

We present a description of the type IIB NS-NS p-branes in terms of topological solitons in systems of spacetime-filling brane-antibrane pairs. S-duality implies that these spacetime-filling branes are NS9-branes, S-dual to the D9-branes of the type IIB theory. The possible vortex-like solutions in an NS9,anti-NS9 configuration are identified by looking at its worldvolume effective action. Finally we discuss the implications of these constructions in the description of BPS and non-BPS states in the strongly coupled Heterotic SO(32) theory.Comment: 14 pages, LaTeX file, no figures, final version to appear in JHE

Exotic Branes and Nonperturbative Seven Branes

We construct the effective action of certain exotic branes in the Type II theories which are not predicted by their spacetime supersymmetry algebras. We analyze in detail the case of the NS-7B brane, S-dual to the D7-brane, and connected by T-duality to other exotic branes in Type IIA: the KK-6A brane and the KK-8A brane (obtained by reduction of the M-theory Kaluza-Klein monopole and M9-brane, respectively). The NS-7B brane carries charge with respect to the S-dual of the RR 8-form, which we identify as a non-local combination of the electric-magnetic duals of the axion and the dilaton. The study of its effective action agrees with previous results in the literature showing that it transforms as an SL(2,Z) triplet together with the D7-brane. We discuss why this brane is not predicted by the Type IIB spacetime supersymmetry algebra. In particular we show that the modular transformation relating the D7 and NS-7B brane solutions can be undone by a simple coordinate transformation in the two dimensional transverse space, equivalent to choosing a different region to parametrize the SL(2,Z) moduli space. We discuss a similar relation between the D6 and KK-6A branes and the D8 and KK-8A branes.Comment: 42 pages, Latex, 1 figur

A new AdS_4/CFT_3 Dual with Extended SUSY and a Spectral Flow

We construct a new AdS_4 background in Type IIB supergravity by means of a non-Abelian T-duality transformation on the Type IIA dual of ABJM. The analysis of probe and particle-like branes suggests a dual CFT in which each of the gauge groups is doubled. A common feature of non-Abelian T-duality is that in the absence of any global information coming from String Theory it gives rise to non-compact dual backgrounds, with coordinates living in the Lie algebra of the Lie group involved in the dualization. In backgrounds with CFT duals this poses obvious problems to the CFTs. In this paper we show that for the new AdS_4 background the gauge groups of the associated dual CFT undergo a spectral flow as the non-compact internal direction runs from 0 to infinity, which resembles Seiberg duality in N=1. This phenomenon, very reminiscent of the cascade, provides an interpretation in the CFT for the running of the non-compact coordinate, and suggests that at the end of the flow the extra charges disappear and the dual CFT is described by a 2-node quiver very similar to ABJM, albeit with reduced supersymmetry.Comment: 40 pages, published versio

A giant graviton genealogy

In this article we extend the construction of giant gravitons from holomorphic surfaces [arXiv:hep-th/0010206] to the ABJM correspondence. We construct a new class of 1/6-BPS M5-branes wrapping 5-manifolds in S^7/Z_k and supported by a large angular momentum in the orbifold space. These orbifold giant gravitons undergo a supersymmetry enhancement to 1/3-BPS and 1/2-BPS configurations in special cases. The compactification of M-theory on AdS_4 x S^7/Z_k to type IIA superstring theory on AdS_4 x CP^3 then gives rise to another new class of 1/6-BPS D4 and NS5-branes wrapping 4 and 5-manifolds in CP^3. The D4-branes carry a combination of D0-brane charge and angular momentum in the complex projective space, while the NS5-branes are supported only by D0-brane charge. Finally, we present a detailed analysis of a one-parameter family of 1/2-BPS M5-brane orbifold giant gravitons, and their D4 and NS5-brane CP^3 descendants.Comment: 34 pages; 1 figure; minor revisions; references adde

Charged Particle-like Branes in ABJM: A Summary

We study the effect of adding lower dimensional brane charges to the 't Hooft monopole, di-baryon and baryon vertex configurations in AdS_4 x CP^3. We show that these configurations capture the background fluxes in a way that depends on the induced charges, requiring additional fundamental strings to cancel the worldvolume tadpoles. The dynamics reveal that the charges must lie inside some interval, a situation familiar from the baryon vertex in AdS_5 x S^5 with charges. For the baryon vertex and the di-baryon the number of fundamental strings must also lie inside an allowed interval. Some ideas about the existence of these bounds in relation to the stringy exclusion principle are given.Comment: 6 pages. Contribution to the proceedings of the XVIth European Workshop on String Theory, Madrid, Spain, June 14-18 2010; based on a talk given by N. Gutierre