(8,0) quantum mechanics and symmetry enhancement in type I' superstrings

Dec, 1997
30 pages
Published in:
  • JHEP 01 (1998) 006
e-Print:
Report number:
  • CPTH-S570-1297,
  • DAMTP-97-50,
  • WIS-97-34,
  • CPTH-S570.1297

Citations per year

19972004201120182024024681012
Abstract: (arXiv)
The low-energy supersymmetric quantum mechanics describing D-particles in the background of D8-branes and orientifold planes is analyzed in detail, including a careful discussion of Gauss' law and normal ordering of operators. This elucidates the mechanism that binds D-particles to an orientifold plane, in accordance with the predictions of heterotic/type I duality. The ocurrence of enhanced symmetries associated with massless bound states of a D-particle with one orientifold plane is illustrated by the enhancement of SO(14)×U(1)SO(14) \times U(1) to E8E_8 and SO(12)×U(1)SO(12)\times U(1) to E7E_7 at strong type I' coupling. Enhancement to higher-rank groups involves both orientifold planes. For example, the enhanced E8×E8×SU(2)E_8 \times E_8 \times SU(2) symmetry at the self-dual radius of the heterotic string is seen as the result of two D8-branes coinciding midway between the orientifold planes, while the enhanced SU(18)SU(18) symmetry results from the coincidence of all sixteen D8-branes and SO(34)SO(34) when they also coincide with an orientifold plane. As a separate by-product, the s-rule of brane-engineered gauge theories is derived by relating it through a chain of dualities to the Pauli exclusion principle.
Note:
  • 30 pages LaTeX, Five figures. Two references added as well as some Comments in section4. v4: Missing backslashes added to four reference citations!
  • string model
  • supersymmetry
  • quantum mechanics
  • Gauss law
  • duality
  • membrane model: D-brane
  • bound state
  • mirror particle
  • moduli space
  • critical phenomena