Gas of D-Branes and Hagedorn Density of BPS States

We test the prediction of a hagedorn density of BPS states which carry RR charge in type II compactifications. We find that in certain cases they correspond to the supersymmetric ground states for a gas of identical 0-branes.Comment: 8 pages, a minor Tex error correcte

Instantons on D-branes

We consider type IIA compactification on $K3$. We show that the instanton subsectors of the worldvolume of $N$ 4-branes wrapped around $K3$ lead to a Hagedorn density of BPS states in accord with heterotic-type IIA duality in 6 dimensions. We also find evidence that the correct framework to understand the results of Nakajima on the appearance of affine Kac-Moody algebras on the cohomology of moduli space of instantons on ALE spaces is in the context of heterotic-type IIA string duality.Comment: 11 page

U-Manifolds

We use non-perturbative U-duality symmetries of type II strings to construct new vacuum solutions. In some ways this generalizes the F-theory vacuum constructions. We find the possibilities of new vacuum constructions are very limited. Among them we construct new theories with N=2 supersymmetry in 3-dimensions and (1, 1) supersymmetry in 2-dimensions.Comment: 11 pages, minor changes in references and text (version to appear in Phys. Lett. B

Constraints on Low-Dimensional String Compactifications

We study the restrictions imposed by cancellation of the tadpoles for two, three, and four-form gauge fields in string theory, M-theory and F-theory compactified to two, three and four dimensions, respectively. For a large class of supersymmetric vacua, turning on a sufficient number of strings, membranes and three-branes, respectively, can cancel the tadpoles, and preserve supersymmetry. However, there are cases where the tadpole cannot be removed in this way, either because the tadpole is fractional, or because of its sign. For M-theory and F-theory compactifications, we also explore the relation of the membranes and three-branes to the nonperturbative space-time superpotential.Comment: 16 pages, harvma