A unifying topological action for heterotic and type II superstring theories

Laurent Baulieu*, Michael B. Green, Eliezer Rabinovici

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

11 Scopus citations

Abstract

The heterotic and type II superstring actions are identified in different anomaly-free decompositions of a single topological sigma-model action depending on bosonic and fermionic coordinates, Xμ and ρAA respectively, and of their topological ghosts. This model results from gauge-fixing the topological gauge symmetry δXμ = εμ (z, z̄) (μ = 1, 2, . . . , 10) and δμα = εα (z, z̄) (α = 1, 2, . . . , 16). From another viewpoint the heterotic and type H superstring actions emerge as two different gauge-fixings of the same closed two-form. Comments are also made concerning the possibility of relating ρα to a Majorana-Weyl space-time spinor superpartner of Xμ.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)91-98
Number of pages8
JournalPhysics Letters, Section B: Nuclear, Elementary Particle and High-Energy Physics
Volume386
Issue number1-4
DOIs
StatePublished - 3 Oct 1996

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