Branes and Electric-Magnetic Duality in Supersymmetric QCD

We study the Type IIA limit of the M theory fivebrane configuration corresponding to N=1 supersymmetric QCD with massless quarks. We identify the effective gauge coupling constant that fits with Novikov-Shifman-Veinshtein-Zakharov exact beta function. We find two different Type IIA limits that correspond to the electric and magnetic descriptions of SQCD, as observed in the massive case by Schmaltz and Sundrum. The analysis is extended to the case of symplectic and orthogonal gauge groups. In any of the cases considered in this paper, the electric and magnetic configurations are smoothly interpolated via $M$ theory. This is in sharp contrast with the proposed derivation of N=1 duality within the weakly coupled Type IIA string theory where a singularity is inevitable unless one turns on a parameter that takes the theory away from an interesting point.Comment: 51 pages, 15 figures, LaTeX, minor correction

On The Structure Of The Chan-Paton Factors For D-Branes In Type II Orientifolds

We determine the structure of the Chan-Paton factors of the open strings ending on space filling D-branes in Type II orientifolds. Through the analysis, we obtain a rule concerning possible distribution of O-plane types. The result is applied to classify the topology of D-branes in terms of Fredholm operators and K-theory, deriving a proposal made earlier and extending it to more general cases. It is also applied to compactifications with N=1 supersymmetry in four-dimensions. We adapt and develop the language of category in this context, and use it to describe some decay channels.Comment: 137 page

Worldsheet Descriptions of Wrapped NS Five-Branes

We provide a world-sheet description of Neveu-Schwarz five-branes wrapped on a complex projective space. It is an orbifold of the product of an N=2 minimal model and the IR fixed point of a certain linear sigma model. We show how the naked singularity in the supergravity description is resolved by the world-sheet CFT. Applying mirror symmetry, we show that the low-energy theory of NS5-branes wrapped on CP^1 in Eguchi-Hanson space is described by the Seiberg-Witten prepotential for N=2 super-Yang-Mills, with the gauge group given by the ADE-type of the five-brane. The world-sheet CFT is generically regular, but singularities develop precisely at the Argyres-Douglas points and massless monopole points of the space-time theory. We also study the low-energy theory of NS5-branes wrapped on CP^2 in a Calabi-Yau 3-fold and its relation to (2,2) super-Yang-Mills theory in two dimensions.Comment: 40 pages, late

Duality of the fermionic 2d black hole and N = 2 Liouville theory as mirror symmetry

We prove the equivalence of the SL(2, R)/U(1) Kazama-Suzuki model, which is a fermionic generalization of the 2d Black Hole, and N = 2 Liouville theory. We show that this duality is an example of mirror symmetry. The essential part of the derivation is to realize the fermionic 2d Black Hole as the low energy limit of a gauged linear sigma-model. Liouville theory is obtained by dualizing the charged scalar fields and taking into account the vortex-instanton effects, as proposed recently in non-dilatonic models. The gauged linear sigma-model we study has many useful generalizations which we briefly discuss. In particular, we show how to construct a variety of dilatonic superstring backgrounds which generalize the fermionic 2d Black Hole and admit a mirror description in terms of Toda-like theories