Enhanced gauge symmetries in superstring theories

DOI10.1016/0550-3213(95)00364-XzbMATH Open0925.81146arXivhep-th/9505073MaRDI QIDQ1898640FDOQ1898640

Authors: C. M. Hull, Paul Kingsley Townsend

Publication date: 20 September 1995

Published in: Nuclear Physics B (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: Certain four-dimensional

N = 4

supersymmetric theories have special vacua in which massive charged vector supermultiplets become massless, resulting in an enhanced non-abelian gauge symmetry. We show here that any two

N = 4

theories having the same Bogomolnyi spectrum at corresponding points of their moduli spaces have the same enhanced symmetry groups. In particular, the

K_{3} i m e s T^{2}

compactified type II string is argued to have the same enhanced symmetry groups as the

T^{6}

-compactified heterotic string, giving further evidence for our conjecture that these two string theories are equivalent. A feature of the enhanced symmetry phase is that for every electrically charged state whose mass tends to zero as an enhanced symmetry point is approached, there are magnetically charged and dyonic states whose masses also tend to zero, a result that applies equally to N=4 super Yang-Mills theory. These extra non-perturbative massless states in the