Orientifolds: The Unique Personality Of Each Spacetime Dimension

Abstract

I review some recent developments in our understanding of the dynamics of Z_2 orientifolds of type IIA and IIB strings and M-theory. Interesting physical phenomena that occur in each spacetime dimension from 10 to 1 are summarized, along with some relationships to nonperturbative effects and to M- and F-theory. The conceptual aspects that are highlighted are: (i) orientifolds of M-theory, (ii) exceptional gauge symmetry from open strings, (iii) certain similarities between branes and orientifold planes. Some comments are also made on disconnected components of orientifold moduli space.

arXiv commentharvmac, 15 pages (b), one eps figure; Review based on talks given at Puri (Dec 1996) and Paris (Aug 1997)

References in corpus (10)

• Evidence for Heterotic - Type I String Duality
• D-Branes and Topological Field Theories
• On Flux Quantization In M-Theory And The Effective Action
• D-branes from M-branes
• Extremal Transitions and Five-Dimensional Supersymmetric Field Theories
• F-Theory at Constant Coupling
• Orbifolds of M-theory
• Gravitational Couplings and $Z_2$ Orientifolds
• Strong Coupling Dynamics of Branes from M-theory
• A Note on Low-Dimensional String Compactifications