nLab duality between heterotic and type II string theory

Idea

A duality in string theory relating heterotic string theory to type II string theory via KK-compactification on K3-surfaces. This is the archetypical example of string-string duality.

The non-perturbative enhancement of this is duality between heterotic string theory and M/F-theory.

References

Precursor articles:

• Paul Townsend, A New Anomaly Free Chiral Supergravity Theory From Compactification on K3, Phys.Lett. 139B (1984) 283-287 (spire:14293)

• Michael Green, John Schwarz Peter West, Anomaly-free chiral theories in six dimensions, Nuclear Physics B Volume 254, 1985, Pages 327-348 (doi:10.1016/0550-3213(85)90222-6)

Original articles

• Michael Duff, Ruben Minasian, Putting string/string duality to the test, Nucl.Phys. B436 (1995) 507-528 (arXiv:hep-th/9406198)

• Chris Hull, Paul Townsend, Section 6 of Unity of Superstring Dualities, Nucl.Phys.B438:109-137, 1995 (arXiv:hep-th/9410167)

• Ashoke Sen, String string duality conjecture in six dimensions and charged solitonic strings, Nucl.Phys.B450:103-114, 1995 (arXiv:hep-th/9504027)

• K. Davis, M-Theory and String-String Duality (arXiv:hep-th/9601102)

Survey:

• Paul Aspinwall, K3 Surfaces and String Duality (arXiv:hep-th/9611137)

Specifically in view of moonshine:

• S. Chaudhuri, D.A. Lowe, Monstrous String-String Duality, Nucl.Phys.B469:21-36, 1996 (arXiv:hep-th/9512226)

• Miranda Cheng, Sarah M. Harrison, Roberto Volpato, Max Zimet, K3 String Theory, Lattices and Moonshine, Research in the Mathematical Sciences 2018 5:32 (arXiv:1612.04404, doi:10.1007/s40687-018-0150-4)

Relation to little string theory:

• Ofer Aharony, Bartomeu Fiol, David Kutasov, David A. Sahakyan, Little String Theory and Heterotic/Type II Duality, Nucl. Phys. B679:3-65, 2004 (arXiv:hep-th/0310197)

Further developments:

• I. Antoniadis, E. Gava, K.S. Narain, T.R. Taylor, N=2 Type II- Heterotic duality and Higher derivative F-terms (arXiv:hep-th/9507115)

• Oren Bergman, Matthias Gaberdiel, Non-BPS States in Heterotic - Type IIA Duality (arXiv:hep-th/9901014)

• Jan Louis, Roberto Valandro, Heterotic-Type II duality in the hypermultiplet sector, JHEP05 (2012) 016 (arXiv:1112.3566)

• Sergei Alexandrov, Boris Pioline, Heterotic-type II duality in twistor space (arXiv:1210.3037)

• Eric Bergshoeff, C. Condeescu, G. Pradisi, F. Riccioni, Heterotic-Type II duality and wrapping rules, JHEP12(2013) 057 (arXiv:1311.3578)

• Sergei Alexandrov, Jan Louis, Boris Pioline, Roberto Valandro, N=2 Heterotic-Type II duality and bundle moduli, JHEP08 (2014) 092 (arXiv:1405.4792)

• Andreas Braun, Taizan Watari, Heterotic-Type IIA Duality and Degenerations of K3 Surfaces, JHEP08 (2016) 034 (arXiv:1604.06437)