Search

Motivated by recent advances in Donaldson-Thomas theory, four-dimensional $$ \mathcal{N} $$ N = 4 string-string duality is examined in a reduced rank theory on a less studied BPS sector. In particular we identify candidate partition functions of “untwisted” quarter-BPS dyons in the heterotic ℤ2 CHL model by studying the associated chiral genus two partition function, based on the M-theory lift of string webs argument by Dabholkar and Gaiotto. This yields meromorphic Siegel modular forms for the Iwahori subgroup B(2) ⊂ Sp4(ℤ) which generate BPS indices for dyons with untwisted sector electric charge, in contrast to twisted sector dyons counted by a multiplicative lift of twisted-twining elliptic genera known from Mathieu moonshine. The new partition functions are shown to satisfy the expected constraints coming from wall-crossing and S-duality symmetry as well as the black hole entropy based on the Gauss-Bonnet term in the effective action. In these aspects our analysis confirms and extends work of Banerjee, Sen and Srivastava, which only addressed a subset of the untwisted sector dyons considered here. Our results are also compared with recently conjectured formulae of Bryan and Oberdieck for the partition functions of primitive DT invariants of the CHL orbifold X = (K3 × T2)/ℤ2, as suggested by string duality with type IIA theory on X.

Spinor-vector dualities have been established in various exact string realisations like orbifold and free fermionic constructions. This paper aims to investigate possibility of having spinor-vector dualities on smooth geometries in the context of the heterotic string. As a concrete working example the resolution of the T4/Z2 orbifold is considered with an additional circle supporting a Wilson line, for which it is known that the underlying orbifold theory exhibits such a duality by switching on/off a generalised discrete torsion phase between the orbifold twist and the Wilson line. Depending on this phase complementary parts of the twisted sector orbifold states are projected out, so that different blowup modes are available to generate the resolutions. As a consequence, not only the spectra of the dual pairs are different, but also the gauge groups are not identical making this duality less apparent on the blowup and thus presumably on smooth geometries in general., 1+19 pages, LaTeX. References added. Typos corrected

Given a two-dimensional conformal field theory with a global symmetry, we propose a method to implement an orbifold construction by taking orbits of the modular group. For the case of cyclic symmetries we find that this approach always seems to be consistent, even in asymmetric orbifold cases where the usual construction does not yield a modular invariant theory; our approach keeps modular invariance manifest but may give a result that is equivalent to the original theory. For the case that the symmetry is a subgroup of a continuous flavor symmetry, we can give explicit constructions of the spectrum, with twisted sectors corresponding to a non-standard group projection on an enlarged twisted sector Hilbert space., Comment: 44 pages, minor typos corrected

We study the elliptic genera of two-dimensional orbifold CFTs, where the orbifolding procedure introduces du Val surface singularities on the target space. The N=4 character decompositions of the elliptic genus contributions from the twisted sectors at the singularities obey a consistent scaling property, and contain information about the arrangement of exceptional rational curves in the resolution. We also discuss how these twisted sector elliptic genera are related to twining genera and Hodge elliptic genera for sigma models with K3 target space., 13 pages + appendix. v2: minor changes, including additional references

We consider states of the D1-D5 CFT where only the left-moving sector is excited. As we deform away from the orbifold point, some of these states will remain BPS while others can ‘lift’. We compute this lifting for a particular family of D1-D5-P states, at second order in the deformation off the orbifold point. We note that the maximally twisted sector of the CFT is special: the covering surface appearing in the correlator can only be genus one while for other sectors there is always a genus zero contribution. We use the results to argue that fuzzball configurations should be studied for the full class including both extremal and near-extremal states; many extremal configurations may be best seen as special limits of near extremal configurations., Journal of High Energy Physics, 2019 (1), ISSN:1126-6708, ISSN:1029-8479

The D1D5 CFT has a large set of states that are supersymmetric at the `free' orbifold point in moduli space. When we perturb away from this point, some of these states join into long multiplets and lift in energy, while others remain supersymmetric. The count of unlifted states can be bounded below by an index, but the index does not yield the pattern of lifting; i.e., which states join into a long multiplet and how much this multiplet lifts. In this paper we consider the simple case of the D1D5 CFT where the orbifold CFT is a sigma model with targets space $(T^4)^2/S_2$ and consider states at energy level $1$. There are $2688$ states at this level. The lifted states form a triplet of long multiplets, and we compute their lift at second order in perturbation theory. Half the members of the long multiplet are in the untwisted sector and half are in the twisted sector. This and other similar studies should help in the understanding of fuzzball states that describe extremal holes, since CFT sectors with low twist describe shallow throats in the dual gravity solution while sectors with high twist describe deep throats., Comment: 36 pages

We study non-BPS D-branes in the type II string vacua with chiral space-time SUSY constructed based on the asymmetric orbifolds of $\mbox{K3} \cong T^4/{\Bbb Z}_2$ as a succeeding work of arXiv:1704.05262[hep-th]. We especially focus on the fractional D-branes that contains the contributions from the twisted sector of the ${\Bbb Z}_2$ orbifolding. We show that the cylinder partition functions for these fractional branes do not vanish, as in the cases of ordinary non-BPS D-branes. This aspect is in a sharp contrast with the bulk-type branes studied in arXiv:1704.05262[hep-th]. We then discuss the extensions of models by including the discrete torsion depending on the spin structures, and investigate whether we obtain the vanishing self-overlaps associated to the fractional branes. The existence/absence of bose-fermi cancellations both in the closed and open string spectra as well as the massless spectra in the twisted sectors crucially depend on the discrete torsion. We find that some choices of the torsion indeed realize the vanishing self-overlaps for the fractional branes, with keeping the vanishing torus partition function intact., 1+30 pages, no figure

Using supersymmetric localization, we consider four-dimensional N $$ \mathcal{N} $$ = 2 superconformal quiver gauge theories obtained from ℤ n $$ {\mathbb{Z}}_n $$ orbifolds of N $$ \mathcal{N} $$ = 4 Super Yang-Mills theory in the large N limit at weak coupling. In particular, we show that: 1) The partition function for arbitrary couplings can be constructed in terms of universal building blocks. 2) It can be computed in perturbation series, which converges uniformly for |λ I | < π2, where λ I are the ’t Hooft coupling of the gauge groups. 3) The perturbation series for two-point functions can be explicitly computed to arbitrary orders. There is no universal effective coupling by which one can express them in terms of correlators of the N $$ \mathcal{N} $$ = 4 theory. 4) One can define twisted and untwisted sector operators. At the perturbative orbifold point, when all the couplings are the same, the correlators of untwisted sector operators coincide with those of N $$ \mathcal{N} $$ = 4 Super Yang-Mills theory. In the twisted sector, we find remarkable cancellations of a certain number of planar loops, determined by the conformal dimension of the operator.

We obtain two boundary states corresponding to the two folds of a fractional-wrapped D$p$-brane, i.e. the twisted version under the orbifold $\mathbb{C}^{2}/\mathbb{Z}_{2}$ and the untwisted version. The brane has rotation and linear motion, in the presence of the following background fields: the Kalb-Ramond tensor, a $U(1)$ internal gauge potential and a tachyon field. The rotation and linear motion are inside the volume of the brane. The brane lives in the $d$-dimensional spacetime, with the orbifold-toroidal structure $T^n \times \mathbb{R}^{1, d-n-5} \times\mathbb{C}^{2}/\mathbb{Z}_{2}$ in the twisted sector. Using these boundary states we calculate the interaction amplitude of two parallel fractional D$p$-branes with the foregoing setup. Various properties of this amplitude such as the long-range behavior will be analyzed., 19 pages, Latex2e, no figure

Twisted sectors arise naturally in the bosonic higher spin CFTs at their free points, as well as in the associated symmetric orbifolds. We identify the coset representations of the twisted sector states using the description of W∞ representations in terms of plane partitions. We confirm these proposals by a microscopic null-vector analysis, and by matching the excitation spectrum of these representations with the orbifold prediction., Journal of High Energy Physics, 2016 (9), ISSN:1126-6708, ISSN:1029-8479

cThe large level limit of the N = 2 $$ \mathcal{N}=2 $$ minimal models that appear in the duality with the N = 2 $$ \mathcal{N}=2 $$ supersymmetric higher spin theory on AdS 3 is shown to be a natural subsector of a certain symmetric orbifold theory. We study the relevant decompositions in both the untwisted and the twisted sector, and analyse the structure of the higher spin representations in the twisted sector in some detail. These results should help to identify the string background of which the higher spin theory is expected to describe the leading Regge trajectory in the tensionless limit.

We continue our discussion of the general bosonic prototype of the new orbifold-string theories of permutation type. Supplementing the extended physical-state conditions of the previous paper, we construct here the extended Virasoro generators with cycle central charge $\hat{c}_j(\sigma)=26f_j(\sigma)$, where $f_j(\sigma)$ is the length of cycle $j$ in twisted sector $\sigma$. We also find an equivalent, reduced formulation of each physical-state problem at reduced cycle central charge $c_j(\sigma)=26$. These tools are used to begin the study of the target space-time dimension $\hat{D}_j(\sigma)$ of cycle $j$ in sector $\sigma$, which is naturally defined as the number of zero modes (momenta) of each cycle. The general model-dependent formulae derived here will be used extensively in succeeding papers, but are evaluated in this paper only for the simplest case of the "pure" permutation orbifolds., Comment: 32 pages

There are two approaches to constructing stringy multiplications for global quotients. The first one is given by first pulling back and then pushing forward. The second one is given by first pushing forward and then pulling back. The first approach has been used to define a global stringy extension of the functors K0 and Ktop by Jarvis–Kaufmann–Kimura, A* by Abramovich–Graber–Vistoli, and H* by Chen–Ruan and Fantechi–Gottsche. The second approach has been applied by the author in the case of cyclic twisted sector and in particular for singularities with symmetries and for symmetric products. The second type of construction has also been discussed in the de Rham setting for Abelian quotients by Chen–Hu. We give a rigorous formulation of de Rham theory for any global quotient from both points of view. We also show that the pull–push formalism has a solution by the push–pull equations in the setting case of cyclic twisted sectors. In the general, not necessarily cyclic case, we introduce ring extensions and treat all the stringy extension of the functors mentioned above also from the second point of view. A first extension provides formal sections and a second extension fractional Euler classes. The formal sections allow us to give a pull–push solution while fractional Euler classes give a trivialization of the co-cycles of the pull–push formalism. The main tool is the formula for the obstruction bundle of Jarvis–Kaufmann–Kimura. This trivialization can be interpreted as defining the physics notion of twist fields. We end with an outlook on applications to singularities with symmetries aka. orbifold Landau–Ginzburg models.

Suppose that a finite group G G acts on a smooth complex variety X X . Then this action lifts to the Chiral de Rham complex Ω X ch \Omega ^{\operatorname {ch}}_{X} of X X and to its cohomology by automorphisms of the vertex algebra structure. We define twisted sectors for Ω X ch \Omega ^{\operatorname {ch}}_{X} (and their cohomologies) as sheaves of twisted vertex algebra modules supported on the components of the fixed-point sets X g , g ∈ G X^{g}, g \in G . Each twisted sector sheaf carries a BRST differential and is quasi-isomorphic to the de Rham complex of X g X^{g} . Putting the twisted sectors together with the vacuum sector and taking G G -invariants, we recover the additive and graded structures of Chen-Ruan orbifold cohomology. Finally, we show that the orbifold elliptic genus is the partition function of the direct sum of the cohomologies of the twisted sectors.

In this article, we study the structure of Verma modules and Fock modules over the twisted sector of the N =2 super Virasoro algebras.

It is shown that the twisted sector spectrum, as well as the associated Chern-Simons interactions, can be determined on M-theory orbifold fixed planes that do not admit gravitational anomalies. This is demonstrated for the seven-planes arising within the context of an explicit $R^6 \times S^1/Z_2 \times T^4/Z_2$ orbifold, although the results are completely general. Local anomaly cancellation in this context is shown to require fractional anomaly data that can only arise from a twisted sector on the seven-planes, thus determining the twisted spectrum up to a small ambiguity. These results open the door to the construction of arbitrary M-theory orbifolds, including those containing fixed four-planes which are of phenomenological interest., Comment: 21 pages, LaTeX

The bosonic beta-gamma ghost system has long been used in formal constructions of conformal field theory. It has become important in its own right in the last few years, as a building block of field theory approaches to disordered systems, and as a simple representative -- due in part to its underlying su(2)_{-1/2} structure -- of non-unitary conformal field theories. We provide in this paper the first complete, physical, analysis of this beta-gamma system, and uncover a number of striking features. We show in particular that the spectrum involves an infinite number of fields with arbitrarily large negative dimensions. These fields have their origin in a twisted sector of the theory, and have a direct relationship with spectrally flowed representations in the underlying su(2)_{-1/2} theory. We discuss the spectral flow in the context of the operator algebra and fusion rules, and provide a re-interpretation of the modular invariant consistent with the spectrum.

We study a matrix model describing type IIB superstring in orbifold backgrounds. We particularly consider a {\bf C}^3/{\bf Z}_3 orbifold model whose six dimensional transverse space is orbifolded by {\bf Z}_3 discrete symmetry. This model is chiral and has d=4 {\cal N}=1 supersymmetry of Yang-Mills type as well as an inhomogeneous supersymmetry specific to matrix models. We calculate one-loop effective action around some backgrounds, and the result can be interpreted as interactions mediated by massless particles in IIB supergravity in orbifold background, if the background is in the Higgs branch. If the background is in the Coulomb branch, the dynamics is governed by the reduced model of d=4 super Yang-Mills theory, which might be interpreted as exchange of massless particles in the twisted sector. But the perturbative calculation cannot reproduce the supergravity result. We also show that this model with a large Higgs vacuum expectation value becomes IIB (IKKT) matrix model., 23 pages, references added

We analyze the spectrum of the bosonic and superstring on the orbifold of the space-time by a boost, leading to the cosmological singularity. We show that the modular invariance leads to the spectrum where the twisted sector tachyon, together with all other twisted sector fields, present in the Euclidean version of the orbifold, is absent. This makes impossible to resolve the singularity by a marginal deformation of the worldsheet CFT. We also establish a relation between the resolution of rotational orbifolds in Euclidean and Lorentzian setups, and quantum groups. The analysis confirms the impossibility of resolving the cosmological orbifold singularity., Comment: harvmac, 14pp

We study heterotic ground states in which supersymmetry is broken by coupling the momentum and winding charges of two large extra dimensions to the R-charges of the supersymmetry generators. The large dimensions give rise to towers of heavy string thresholds that contribute to the running of the gauge couplings. In the general case, these contributions are proportional to the volume of the two large dimensions and invalidate the perturbative string expansion. The problem is evaded if the susy breaking sectors arise as a spontaneously broken phase of N=4 -> N=2 -> N=0 supersymmetry, provided that N=4 supersymmetry is restored on the boundary of the moduli space. We discuss the mechanism in the case of Z_2 x Z_2 orbifolds, which requires that the twisted sector that contains the large extra dimensions has no fixed points. We analyse the full string partition function and show that the twisted sectors distribute themselves in non-aligned N=2 orbits, hence preserving the solution to the string decompactification problem. Remarkably, we find that the contribution to the vacuum energy from the N=2 -> N=0 sectors is suppressed, and the only substantial contribution arises from the breaking of the N=4 sector to N=0., 1+63 pages

For the N $$ \mathcal{N} $$ = 2 Kazama-Suzuki models that appear in the duality with a higher spin theory on AdS 3 it is shown that the large level limit can be interpreted as a continuous orbifold of 2 N free bosons and fermions by the group U( N ). In particular, we show that the subset of coset representations that correspond to the perturbative higher spin degrees of freedom are precisely described by the untwisted sector of this U( N ) orbifold. We furthermore identify the twisted sector ground states of the orbifold with specific coset representations, and give various pieces of evidence in favour of this identification.

Recently a construction was given for the stress tensors of all sectors of the general current-algebraic orbifold A(H)/H, where A(H) is any current-algebraic conformal field theory with a finite symmetry group H. Here we extend and further analyze this construction to obtain the mode formulation of each sector of each orbifold A(H)/H, including the twisted current algebra, the Virasoro generators, the orbifold adjoint operation and the commutator of the Virasoro generators with the modes of the twisted currents. As applications, general expressions are obtained for the twisted current-current correlator and ground state conformal weight of each twisted sector of any permutation orbifold A(H)/H, H \subset S_N. Systematics are also outlined for the orbifolds A(Lie h(H))/H of the (H and Lie h)-invariant conformal field theories, which include the general WZW orbifold and the general coset orbifold. Finally, two new large examples are worked out in further detail: the general S_N permutation orbifold A(S_N)/S_N and the general inner-automorphic orbifold A(H(d))/H(d)., Comment: 60 pages, typos corrected

We study fractional branes in ${\CN}=2$ orbifold and ${\CN}=1$ conifold theories. Placing a large number $N$ of regular D3-branes at the singularity produces the dual ${\bf AdS}_5\times X^5$ geometry, and we describe the fractional branes as small perturbations to this background. For the orbifolds, $X^5={\bf S}^5/\Gamma$ and fractional D3-branes excite complex scalars from the twisted sector which are localized on the fixed circle of $X^5$. The resulting solutions are given by holomorphic functions and the field-theoretic beta-function is simply reproduced. For $N$ regular and $M$ fractional D3-branes at the conifold singularity we find a non-conformal ${\cal N}=1$ supersymmetric $SU(N+M)\times SU(N)$ gauge theory. The dual Type $\II$B background is ${\bf AdS}_5\times {\bf T}^{1,1}$ with NS-NS and R-R 2-form fields turned on. This dual description reproduces the logarithmic flow of couplings found in the field theory., Comment: 15 pages, harvmac; v2: typos corrected; v3: minor corrections, references added

We consider anomaly cancelations in Type IIB orientifolds on T^4/Z_N with quantized NS-NS sector background B-flux. For a rank b B-flux on T^4 (b is always even) and when N is even, the cancelation requires a 2^{b/2} multiplicity of states in the 59-open string sector. We identify the twisted sector R-R scalars and tensor multiplets which are involved in the Green-Schwarz mechanism. We give more details of the construction of these models and argue that consistency with the 2^{b/2} multiplicity of 59-sector states requires a modification of the relation between the open string 1-loop channel modulus and the closed string tree channel modulus in the 59-cylinder amplitudes., Comment: Revtex 3.0, 34 pages, 2 figures, references added

We obtain the orbifold Virasoro master equation (OVME) at integer order lambda, which summarizes the general Virasoro construction on orbifold affine algebra. The OVME includes the Virasoro master equation when lambda=1 and contains large classes of stress tensors of twisted sectors of conventional orbifolds at higher lambda. The generic construction is like a twisted sector of an orbifold (with non-zero ground state conformal weight) but new constructions are obtained for which we have so far found no conventional orbifold interpretation., 32 pages. Typos corrected. Version to appear in IJMP

We construct D-brane states on an asymmetric orbifold of type IIA on a four-torus, which is modded out by T-duality. We find explicit boundary states charged under the twisted sector gauge fields. Unlike other cases, the boundary states involve an explicit dependence on the twist fields. The D-brane spectrum is consistent with the model being equivalent to type IIA on a four-torus., 14 pages, latex, added comments and references

It is shown that the orbifold of type IIB string theory by (-1)^{F_L} I_4 admits a stable non-BPS Dirichlet particle that is stuck on the orbifold fixed plane. It is charged under the SO(2) gauge group coming from the twisted sector, and transforms as a long multiplet of the D=6 supersymmetry algebra. This suggests that it is the strong coupling dual of the perturbative stable non-BPS state that appears in the orientifold of type IIB by \Omega I_4., Comment: 10 pages, LaTeX