Some comments on heterotic strings

by Prof. Yuji Tachikawa (Tokyo University)

Friday 24 Mar 2023, 14:00 → 15:00 Asia/Shanghai

In string theory textbooks we learn that there are two types of supersymmetric heterotic strings, namely E8 x E8 and Spin(32)/Z_2 . Are we sure that they are the only ones? The textbooks also explain that there are some non-supersymmetric heterotic strings obtained by alternative GSO projections. Are we sure that we already found all such non-supersymmetric heterotic strings? Finally, we don't usually talk about branes in heterotic strings except for NS5-branes. Are we sure there aren't others? In this talk I'd like to answer these questions, using modern but basic techniques on 2d CFT. (Spoiler alert: the answers are yes, yes and no.) The talk is based on a number of long-running projects with many friends: Philip Boyle Smith, Justin Kaidi, Ying-Hsuan Lin, Kantaro Ohmori, Vivek Saxena, Mayuko Yamashita, Kazuya Yonekura, and Yunqin Zheng.

Introduction: Prof. Yuji Tachikawa is currently a professor at Kavli IPMU, Tokyo University. He works on mathematical aspects of string theory and quantum field theory. He received the New Horizons in Physics Prize in 2016.

加入 Zoom 会议
https://cern.zoom.us/j/96357968034?pwd=K2REeGF0V2dqOElRd09hVGVRcDk4Zz09

Zoom ：963 5796 8034
pwd：125125