nLab string-string duality

Idea

The term string/string duality (Duff-Khuri 93) refers to duality in string theory which relates a perturbative string theory (at small string coupling constant) with another string theory, but now at large string coupling (non-perturbative).

The archetypical example is the duality between heterotic and type II string theory, and often this is taken to be synonymous with “string-string duality”.

This is in contrast to dualities which relate weakly coupled strings to strongly coupled branes of other dimension, such as the electric-magnetic duality which relates the heterotic string to the NS5-brane in dual heterotic string theory, or the duality between type IIA string theory and M-theory, which relates the string to the membrane (M2-brane)

References

Original articles

• Michael Duff, Ramzi Khuri, Four-Dimensional String/String Duality, Nucl.Phys. B411 (1994) 473-486 (arXiv:hep-th/9305142)

Discussion in view of the I8-anomaly term

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

• Michael Duff, James Liu, Ruben Minasian, Eleven Dimensional Origin of String/String Duality: A One Loop Test, Nucl.Phys. B452 (1995) 261-282 (arXiv:hep-th/9506126)

Further discussion

• Edward Witten, p. 3 of String Theory Dynamics In Various Dimensions, Nucl.Phys.B443:85-126,1995 (arXiv:hep-th/9503124)

• 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)