Quartic gauge couplings from K3 geometry

Nov, 1998
31 pages
Published in:
  • Adv.Theor.Math.Phys. 3 (1999) 1575-1611
e-Print:
Report number:
  • CERN-TH-98-378

Citations per year

199820052012201920240246810
Abstract:
We show how certain F^4 couplings in eight dimensions can be computed using the mirror map and K3 data. They perfectly match with the corresponding heterotic one-loop couplings, and therefore this amounts to a successful test of the conjectured duality between the heterotic string on T^2 and F-theory on K3. The underlying quantum geometry appears to be a 5-fold, consisting of a hyperk"ahler 4-fold fibered over a IP^1 base. The natural candidate for this fiber is the symmetric product Sym^2(K3). We are lead to this structure by analyzing the implications of higher powers of E_2 in the relevant Borcherds counting functions, and in particular the appropriate generalizations of the Picard-Fuchs equations for the K3.
  • lectures: La Plata 1997/04/28
  • Seiberg-Witten model
  • gauge field theory: Yang-Mills
  • supersymmetry
  • string model: heterotic
  • duality
  • approximation: semiclassical
  • effective Lagrangian
  • gauge field theory: SU(N)
  • moduli space