String theory and duality

Publication date 6 August 1998

Published in Documenta Mathematica (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/math/9809004, https://eudml.org/doc/232311, http://www.emis.de/journals/DMJDMV/xvol-icm/04/Aspinwall.MAN.html

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zbMATH Keywords

Calabi-Yau threefold heterotic string K3-surfaces Minkowski space mirror symmetry moduli spaces string duality supergravity superstring

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

(K3) surfaces and Enriques surfaces (14J28) (3)-folds (14J30) Calabi-Yau manifolds (algebro-geometric aspects) (14J32) Vector bundles on surfaces and higher-dimensional varieties, and their moduli (14J60) String and superstring theories; other extended objects (e.g., branes) in quantum field theory (81T30)

Abstract: This is a very brief survey of some results in the geometry of string duality delivered at a lecture given at ICM 1998, Berlin. String Duality is the statement that one kind of string theory compactified on one space is equivalent in some sense to another string theory compactified on a second space. This draws a connection between two quite different spaces. Mirror symmetry is an example of this. Here we discuss mirror symmetry and another ``heterotic/type II duality which relates vector bundles on a K3 surface to a Calabi-Yau threefold.

Review text

This paper discusses duality in string theory. Five of string theories (Type I open superstring, Type II A superstring, Type II B superstring, \(E_8\times E_8\) heterotic string, \(\text{Spin}(32)/Z_2\) heterotic string) describe a string propagating flat ten-dimensional Minkowski space \(R^{9,1}\) and eleven-dimensional supergravity \((M\)-theory) describes a membrane propagating in eleven-dimensional Minkowski space \(R^{10,1}\). Instead of using a completely flat Minkowski space, one tries to ``compactify these string theories by replacing the Minkowski space by \(X\times M\), where \(X\) is some compact \((10-d)\)-dimensional manifold (or \((11-d)\)-dimensional in the case of \(M\)-theory) and \(M\cong R^{d-1,1}\). The principle of duality can be stated as follows: Given a specific string and its compactification on \(X\) can one find another string theory compactified on another space, \(Y\), such that the ``physics in the uncompactified space, \(M\), is isomorphic between the two compactifications? The most basic objects one may study to identify the physics of two dual theories are their moduli spaces. The first case discussed here is mirror duality given by a pair \((X,Y)\) of Calabi-Yau threefolds, where the type II A string compactified on \(X\) is physically equivalent to the type II B string compactified on \(Y\). Then, the author discusses the duality between the type II A string compactified on a Calabi-Yau threefold \(X\) and the \(E_8\times E_8\) heterotic string compactified on a factorized bundle over a product of a K3 surface, \(Z\), and an elliptic curve \(E_H\).

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