Does String Theory Have a Duality Symmetry Relating Weak and Strong Coupling?

Abstract

The heterotic string theory, compactified to four dimensions, has been conjectured to have a duality symmetry (S duality) that transforms the dilaton nonlinearly. If valid, this symmetry could provide an important means of obtaining information about nonperturbative features of the theory. Even though it is inherently nonperturbative, S duality exhibits many similarities with the well-established target-space duality symmetry (T duality), which does act perturbatively. These similarities are manifest in a new version of the low-energy effective field theory and in the soliton spectrum obtained by saturating the Bogomol'nyi bound. Curiously, there is evidence that the roles of the S and T dualities are interchanged in passing to a five-brane formulation.

(presented at Strings '93), 14 pages, phyzzx

References in corpus (2)

• Duality Symmetric Actions
• Duality Symmetries of 4D Heterotic Strings

Cited by in corpus (9)

• S-matrix elements from T-duality
• Ramond-Ramond corrections to type II supergravity at order ${\alpha }^{\prime 3}$
• On S-duality of D${}_3$-brane S-matrix
• Sphere-level Ramond-Ramond couplings in Ramond-Neveu-Schwarz formalism
• S-duality of tree-level S-matrix elements in D${}_3$-brane effective action
• Ramond-Ramond S-matrix elements from T-dual Ward identity
• S-duality invariant dilaton couplings at order ${\alpha }^{\prime 3}$
• S-duality of color-ordered amplitudes
• S-duality constraint on higher-derivative couplings