Open Access
April 2011 String universality in six dimensions
Vijay Kumar, Washington Taylor
Adv. Theor. Math. Phys. 15(2): 325-353 (April 2011).

Abstract

In six dimensions, cancellation of gauge, gravitational, and mixed anomalies strongly constrains the set of quantum field theories, which can be coupled consistently to gravity. We show that for some classes of six-dimensional (6D) supersymmetric gauge theories coupled to gravity, the anomaly cancellation conditions are equivalent to tadpole cancellation and other constraints on the matter content of heterotic/type I compactifications on K3. In these cases, all consistent 6D supergravity theories have a realization in string theory. We find one example that may arise from a novel string compactification, and we identify a new infinite family of models satisfying anomaly factorization. We find, however, that this infinite family of models, as well as other infinite families of models previously identified by Schwarz are pathological. We suggest that it may be feasible to demonstrate that there is a string theoretic realization of all consistent 6D supergravity theories which have Lagrangian descriptions with arbitrary gauge and matter content. We attempt to frame this hypothesis of string universality as a concrete conjecture.

Citation

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Vijay Kumar. Washington Taylor. "String universality in six dimensions." Adv. Theor. Math. Phys. 15 (2) 325 - 353, April 2011.

Information

Published: April 2011
First available in Project Euclid: 25 May 2012

zbMATH: 1259.81062
MathSciNet: MR2924233

Rights: Copyright © 2011 International Press of Boston

Vol.15 • No. 2 • April 2011
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