Heterotic and type I strings from twisted supermembranes

Abstract

As shown by Hořava and Witten, there are gravitational anomalies at the boundaries of $M^{10}\times S^1/Z_2$ of 11 dimensional supergravity. They showed that only 10 dimensional vector multiplets belonging to $E_8$ gauge group can be consistently coupled to this theory. Thus, the dimensional reduction of this theory should be the low energy limit of the $E_8\times E_8$ heterotic string. Here we assume that M-theory is a theory of supermembranes which includes twisted supermembranes. We show that for a target space $M^{10}\times S^1/Z_2$, in the limit in which $S^1/Z_2$ is small, the effective action is the $E_8\times E_8$ heterotic string. We also consider supermembranes on $M^9\times S^1\times S^1/Z_2$ and find the dualities expected from 11 dimensional supergravity on this manifold. We show that the requirements for worldsheet anomaly cancellations at the boundaries of the worldvolume action are the same requirements imposed on the Hořava-Witten action.

17 pages, Latex

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• String Theory Dynamics In Various Dimensions
• The eleven-dimensional supermembrane revisited
• An SL(2,Z) Multiplet of Type IIB Superstrings
• The Power of M Theory
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Cited by in corpus (4)

• Open Superbranes
• Open supermembranes in eleven dimensions
• M2-branes on a constant flux background
• Charged Open Membrane Solutions On A Manifold With Boundary