Instantons of Type IIB Supergravity in Ten Dimensions

A family of SO(10) symmetric instanton solutions in Type IIB supergravity is developed. The instanton of least action is a candidate for the low-energy, semiclassical approximation to the {D=--1} brane. Unlike a previously published solution,[GGP] this admits an interpretation as a tunneling amplitude between perturbatively degenerate asymptotic states, but with action twice that found previously. A number of associated issues are discussed such as the relation between the magnetic and electric pictures, an inversion symmetry of the dilaton and the metric, the $R\times S^9$ topology of the background, and some properties of the solution in an "instanton frame" corresponding to a Lagrangian in which the dilaton's kinetic energy vanishes.Comment: 15 pages, no figures; Version 2 has revised sections IV and V. Earlier equations are essentially unchanged, but interpretation changed, on advice of counse

Non-renormalisation Conditions in Type II String Theory and Maximal Supergravity

This paper considers general features of the derivative expansion of Feynman diagram contributions to the four-graviton scattering amplitude in eleven-dimensional supergravity compactified on a two-torus. These are translated into statements about interactions of the form D^2k R^4 in type II superstring theories, assuming the standard M-theory/string theory duality relationships, which provide powerful constraints on the effective interactions. In the ten-dimensional IIA limit we find that there can be no perturbative contributions beyond k string loops (for k>0). Furthermore, the genus h=k contributions are determined exactly by the one-loop eleven-dimensional supergravity amplitude for all values of k. A plausible interpretation of these observations is that the sum of h-loop Feynman diagrams of maximally extended supergravity is less divergent than might be expected and could be ultraviolet finite in dimensions d < 4 + 6/h -- the same bound as for N=4 Yang--Mills.Comment: 30 pages, 4 figures. v3 Some rewording, typos corrected and some references added. v4: Abstract rephrased. More typos corrected. Version to be publishe

Superstrings in AdS in light cone gauge

We discuss light-cone gauge description of type IIB Green-Schwarz superstring in AdS_5 x S^5 with a hope to make progress towards understanding spectrum of this theory. As in flat space, fixing light cone gauge consists of two steps: (i) fixing kappa symmetry in such a way that the fermionic part of the action does not depend on x^-; (ii) fixing 2-d reparametrizations by x^+ = tau and a condition on 2-d metric. In curved AdS space the latter cannot be the standard conformal gauge and breaks manifest 2-d Lorentz invariance. It is natural, therefore, to work in phase-space framework, imposing the GGRT gauge conditions x^+= tau, P^+ =const. We obtain the resulting light cone superstring Hamiltonian. This is a review of hep-th/0007036 and hep-th/0009171.Comment: 10 pages, latex. Contribution to the Proceedings of Strings 2000, Ann Arbo

Exactly solvable model of superstring in Ramond-Ramond plane wave background

We describe in detail the solution of type IIB superstring theory in the maximally supersymmetric plane-wave background with constant null Ramond-Ramond 5-form field strength. The corresponding light-cone Green-Schwarz action found in hep-th/0112044 is quadratic in both bosonic and fermionic coordinates. We find the spectrum of the light-cone Hamiltonian and the string representation of the supersymmetry algebra. The superstring Hamiltonian has a ``harmonic-oscillator'' form in both the string-oscillator and the zero-mode parts and thus has discrete spectrum in all 8 transverse directions. We analyze the structure of the zero-mode sector of the theory, establishing the precise correspondence between the lowest-lying ``massless'' string states and the type IIB supergravity fluctuation modes in the plane-wave background. The zero-mode spectrum has certain similarity to the supergravity spectrum in AdS_5 x S^5 of which the plane-wave background is a special limit. We also compare the plane-wave string spectrum with expected form of the light-cone gauge spectrum of superstring in AdS_5 x S^5.Comment: 33 pages, latex. v4: minor sign corrections in (1.5) and (3.62), to appear in PR

Instantons and SL(2,R) Symmetry in Type IIB Supergravity

We discuss the relation between the dual formulations of Type IIB supergravity emphasizing the differences between Lorentz and Euclidean signature. We demonstrate how the SL(2,R) symmetry of the usual action is manifested in the solution of the equations of motion with Euclidean signature for the dual theory.Comment: 4 pages, no figure

String Creation, D-branes and Effective Field Theory

This paper addresses several unsettled issues associated with string creation in systems of orthogonal Dp-D(8-p) branes. The interaction between the branes can be understood either from the closed string or open string picture. In the closed string picture it has been noted that the DBI action fails to capture an extra RR exchange between the branes. We demonstrate how this problem persists upon lifting to M-theory. These D-brane systems are analysed in the closed string picture by using gauge-fixed boundary states in a non-standard lightcone gauge, in which RR exchange can be analysed precisely. The missing piece in the DBI action also manifests itself in the open string picture as a mismatch between the Coleman-Weinberg potential obtained from the effective field theory and the corresponding open string calculation. We show that this difference can be reconciled by taking into account the superghosts in the (0+1)effective theory of the chiral fermion, that arises from gauge fixing the spontaneously broken world-line local supersymmetries.Comment: 33 page

D3-branes on the Coulomb branch and instantons

The relative coefficients of higher derivative interactions of the IIB effective action of the form C^4, (D F_5)^4, F_5^8, ... (where C is the Weyl tensor and F_5 is the five-form field strength) are motivated by supersymmetry arguments. It is shown that the classical supergravity solution for N parallel D3-branes is unaltered by this combination of terms. The non-vanishing of \zeroC^2 in this background (where \zero C is the background value of the Weyl tensor) leads to effective O(1/alpha') interactions, such as C^2 and Lambda^8 (where Lambda is the dilatino). These contain D-instanton contributions in addition to tree and one-loop terms. The near horizon limit of the N D3-brane system describes a multi-AdS_5xS^5 geometry that is dual to \calN=4 SU(N) Yang-Mills theory spontaneously broken to S(U(M_1)x...xU(M_r)). Here, the N D3-branes are grouped into r coincident bunches with M_r in each group, with M_r/N = m_r fixed as N goes to infinity. The boundary correlation function of eight Lambda's is constructed explicitly. The second part of the paper considers effects of a constrained instanton in this large-N Yang-Mills theory by an extension of the analysis of Dorey, Hollowood and Khoze of the one-instanton measure at finite N. This makes precise the correspondence with the supergravity D-instanton measure at leading order in the 1/N expansion. However, the duality between instanton-induced correlation functions in Yang-Mills theory and the dual supergravity is somewhat obscured by complications relating to the structure of constrained instantons.Comment: 30 pages, JHEP style. Typos corrected and minor clarifications adde

Dispersion Relations in String Theory

We analyze the analytic continuation of the formally divergent one-loop amplitude for scattering of the graviton multiplet in the Type II Superstring. In particular we obtain explicit double and single dispersion relations, formulas for all the successive branch cuts extending out to plus infinity, as well as for the decay rate of a massive string state of arbitrary mass 2N into two string states of lower mass. We compare our results with the box diagram in a superposition of $\phi^3$-like field theories. The stringy effects are traced to a convergence problem in this superposition.Comment: 17 pages, COLUMBIA-YITP-UCLA/93/TEP/45 (figures fixed up

The principle of least action and the geometric basis of D-branes

We analyze thoroughly the boundary conditions allowed in classical non-linear sigma models and derive from first principle the corresponding geometric objects, i.e. D-branes. In addition to giving classical D-branes an intrinsic and geometric foundation, D-branes in nontrivial H flux and D-branes embedded within D-branes are precisely defined. A well known topological condition on D-branes is replaced

Light-Cone Gauge String Field Theory in Noncritical Dimensions

We study light-cone gauge string field theory in noncritical space-time dimensions. Such a theory corresponds to a string theory in a Lorentz noninvariant background. We identify the worldsheet theory for the longitudinal coordinate variables $X^\pm$ and study its properties. It is a CFT with the right value of Virasoro central charge, using which we propose a BRST invariant formulation of the worldsheet theory.Comment: 27 pages, 2 figure