A tour through N=2 strings

Abstract

I give an overview of open, closed and heterotic N=2 strings. At the tree level I derive the effective field theories of all the strings, and discuss the group theory of the N=2 open string and the interaction between its open and closed sectors. At one loop N=2 string loop amplitudes and partition functions have incurable infra-red divergences, and show puzzling disagreements on the dimension of spacetime when compared to their effective field theories. I show that the closed-string three-point amplitude can be written directly in terms of a Schwinger parameter, so explicitly exhibiting the inconsistency. I finally discuss the possibility that the puzzles posed by the loop amplitudes could be solved if the N=2 theories were Lorentz invariant and supersymmetric, and I speculate on possible modifications of the string calculations.

24 Pages (LaTeX) (Revision: History updated, reference fixed.), Rome String Theory Workshop 1992 (Talk presented at the Rome conference on ``String theory, quantum gravity and the unification of fundamental interactions'', Sept 1992.)

Cited by in corpus (21)

• Noncommutative Multi-Solitons in 2+1 Dimensions
• Little String Theory and Heterotic/Type II Duality
• U(N) spinning particles and higher spin equations on complex manifolds
• Path-Integral Quantization of the (2,2) String
• Supertwistors and Cubic String Field Theory for Open N=2 Strings
• Matrix Models and D-branes in Twistor String Theory
• N=2 Worldsheet Instantons Yield Cubic Self-Dual Yang-Mills
• Restoring Reality for the Self-Dual N=2 String
• A Superstring Field Theory for Supergravity
• Self-Dual Super-Yang-Mills as a String Theory in $(x,\theta )$ Space
• The Non-Critical N=2 String is an sl(2|1) Theory
• Non-local symmetries of the closed N=2 string
• N=2 Quantum String Scattering
• Space-Time Supersymmetry of Extended Fermionic Strings in $2+2$ Dimensions
• Aspects of Twistor Geometry and Supersymmetric Field Theories within Superstring Theory
• Quantum mechanics of superparticle with 1/4 supersymmetry breaking
• On Minimal N=4 Topological Strings And The (1,k) Minimal Bosonic String
• Complete Lagrangian formulation for N=4 topological string
• Making the hyper--Kähler structure of N=2 quantum string manifest
• Special Holonomy and Two-Dimensional Supersymmetric Sigma-Models
• Self-Dual $\mathcal{N}$ = 8 Supergravity as a Closed String Field Theory in Twistor Space