In this paper we begin the study of compactifications of the pure spinor formalism for superstrings. As a first example of such a process we study the case of the heterotic string in a Calabi-Yau background. We explicitly construct a BRST operator imposing N=1 four-dimensional supersymmetry and show that nilpotence implies Kahler and Ricci-flatness conditions. The massless spectrum is computed using this BRST operator and it agrees with the expected result.
A simplified pure spinor superstring $b$ ghost in a curved heterotic background was constructed recently. The $b$ ghost is a composite operator and it is not holomorphic. However, it satisfies $\bar\partial b = [ Q , Ω]$, where $Q$ is the BRST charge. In this paper, we find a possible $Ω$.
Using the RNS-like fermionic vector variables introduced in arXiv:1305.0693, the pure spinor $b$ ghost in a curved heterotic superstring background is easily constructed. This construction simplifies and completes the $b$ ghost construction in a curved background of arXiv:1311.7012.
Superstrings have been postulated based on parafermionic partition functions which permit spacetime supersymmetry by generalized Jacobi identities. A comprehensive search finds new such identities. Quadrilateral anomaly cancellation gives constraints on allowed chiral fermions. Bosonic left-movers and $Z_4$ parafermionic right-movers combine in a new heterotic superstring, more constrained than the old one, yet equally applicable to physics.
In this letter we establish that the supersymmetric R^2 effective action for the heterotic string, obtained from the supersymmetrisation of the Lorentz Chern-Simons term, is to order $α'$ equivalent modulo field redefinitions to heterotic string effective actions computed by different methods.
We explicitly compute the anomalous magnetic moment at one loop level for an ``electron'' in a 4d heterotic string theory. The anomalous magnetic moment vanishes if the model is spacetime supersymmetric, as required by the supersymmetric sum rules.
We review the derivation and the basic properties of the perturbative prepotential in N=2 compactifications of the heterotic superstring. We discuss the structure of the perturbative monodromy group and the embedding of rigidly supersymmetric monodromies associated with enhanced gauge groups, at both perturbative and non-perturbative level.
We study quantum effects in five dimensions in heterotic superstring theory compactified on K_3 x S_1 and analyze the conjecture that its dual effective theory is eleven-dimensional supergravity compactified on a Calabi-Yau threefold. This theory is also equivalent to type II superstring theory compactified on the same Calabi-Yau manifold, in an appropriate large volume limit. In this limit the conifold singularity disappears and is replaced by a singularity associated to enhanced gauge symmetries, as naively expected from the heterotic description. Furthermore, we exhibit the existence of add…
We propose a new formulation of the $D=3$ type II superstring which is manifestly invariant under both target-space $N=2$ supersymmetry and worldsheet $N=(1,1)$ super reparametrizations. This gives rise to a set of twistor (commuting spinor) variables, which provide a solution to the two Virasoro constraints. The worldsheet supergravity fields are shown to play the rôle of auxiliary fields.
We derive the low energy effective action of the heterotic superstring in superspace. This is achieved by coupling the covariantly quantized Green-Schwarz superstring of Berkovits to a curved background and requiring that the sigma model has superconformal invariance at tree level and at one loop in $\a'$. Tree level superconformal invariance yields the complete supergravity algebra, and one-loop superconformal invariance the equations of motion of the low energy theory. The resulting low energy theory is old-minimal supergravity coupled to a tensor multiplet. The dilaton is part of the compen…
The sigma model action described in this paper differs in four important features from the usual sigma model action for the four-dimensional Green-Schwarz heterotic superstring in a massless background. Firstly, the action is constructed on an N=(2,0) super-worldsheet using a Kahler potential and an Ogievetsky-Sokatchev constraint; secondly, the target-space background fields are unconstrained; thirdly, the target-space dilaton couples to the two-dimensional curvature; and fourthly, the action reduces in a flat background to a free-field action. A conjecture is made for generalizing this N=(2,…
The heterotic and type II superstring actions are identified in different anomaly-free decompositions of a single topological sigma-model action depending on bosonic and fermionic coordinates, $X^μ$ and $\r^A$ respectively, and of their topological ghosts. This model results from gauge-fixing the topological gauge symmetry $δX^μ= ε^μ(z,\bar z)$ ($μ=1,2,\dots, 10$) and $δ\r^α= ε^α(z,\bar z)$. ($α=1,2.\dots, 16$). From another viewpoint the heterotic and type II superstring actions emerge as two different gauge-fixings of the same closed two-form. Comments are also made concerning the possibilit…
We describe an $N=2$ heterotic superstring model of rank-3 which is dual to the type-II string compactified on a Calabi-Yau manifold with Betti numbers $b_{1,1}=2$ and $b_{1,2}=86$. We show that the exact duality symmetry found from the type II realization contains the perturbative duality group of the heterotic model, as well as the exact quantum monodromies of the rigid $SU(2)$ super-Yang-Mills theory. Moreover, it contains a non-perturbative monodromy which is stringy in origin and corresponds roughly to an exchange of the string coupling with the compactification radius.
The main aspects of a recently developed method for classification of heterotic superstring vacua in the Free Fermionic Formulation are presented. Using these techniques we classify a big number of approximately $10^{15}$ heterotic string vacua with Pati--Salam, SU(4)x{SU(2)}_Lx{SU(2)}_R gauge symmetry with respect to their main phenomenological features as the number of families, Pati--Salam breaking Higgs, Standard Model Higgs doublets, additional triplets and exotic charge states. We identify an interesting subclass of these vacua, approximately one to one million, whose massless spectrum i…
By defining the heterotic Green-Schwarz superstring action on an N=(2,0) super-worldsheet, rather than on an ordinary worldsheet, many problems with the interacting Green-Schwarz superstring formalism can be solved. In the light-cone approach, superconformally transforming the light-cone super-worldsheet onto an N=(2,0) super-Riemann surface allows the elimination of the non-trivial interaction-point operators that complicate the evaluation of scattering amplitudes. In the Polyakov approach, the ten-dimensional heterotic Green-Schwarz covariant action defined on an N=(2,0) super-worldsheet can…
We study supersymmetry conditions for the heterotic pure superstring preserving and N=1 supersymmetry in four dimensions directly from the curved superspace defined by the Berkovits-Howe constraints.
We consider how to normalize the scattering amplitudes of 4D heterotic superstrings in a Minkowski background. We fix the normalization of the vacuum amplitude (the string partition function) at each genus, and of every vertex operator describing a physical external string state in a way consistent with unitarity of the $S$-matrix. We also provide an explicit expression for the map relating the vertex operator of an incoming physical state to the vertex operator describing the same physical state, but outgoing. This map is related to hermitean conjugation and to the hermiticity properties of t…
We provide some additional evidence in favour of the strong - weak coupling duality between the SO(32) heterotic and type I superstring theories by comparing terms quartic in the gauge field strength in their low-energy effective actions. We argue that these terms should not receive higher-loop string corrections so that duality should relate the leading-order perturbative coefficients in the two theories. In particular, we demonstrate that the coefficient of the $F^4$-term in the one-loop (torus) part of the SO(32) heterotic string action is exactly the same as the coefficient of the $F^4$-te…
We compare order $R^4$ terms in the 10-dimensional effective actions of SO(32) heterotic and type I superstrings from the point of view of duality between the two theories. Some of these terms do not receive higher-loop corrections being related by supersymmetry to `anomaly-cancelling' terms which depend on the antisymmetric 2-tensor. At the same time, the consistency of duality relation implies that the `tree-level' $R^4$ super-invariant (the one which has $ζ(3)$-coefficient in the sphere part of the action) should appear also at higher orders of loop expansion, i.e. should be multiplied by a…
We present the technical tools needed to compute any one-loop amplitude involving external spacetime fermions in a four-dimensional heterotic string model a` la Kawai-Lewellen-Tye. As an example, we compute the one-loop three-point amplitude with one "photon" and two external massive fermions ("electrons"). As a check of our computation, we verify that the one-loop contribution to the Anomalous Magnetic Moment vanishes if the model has spacetime supersymmetry, as required by the supersymmetric sum rules.
We study lower-dimensional superstrings in the double-spinor formalism introduced by Aisaka and Kazama. These superstrings can be consistently quantized and are equivalent to the lower-dimensional pure-spinor superstrings proposed by Grassi and Wyllard. The unexpected physical spectrum of the pure-spinor superstrings may thus be regarded as a manifestation of noncriticality. We also discuss how to couple these covariant superstrings to the compactified degrees of freedom described by the N=2 superconformal field theory.
Two-dimensional sigma models are defined for the new manifestly spacetime supersymmetric description of four-dimensional compactified superstrings. The resulting target-superspace effective action is constrained by the way the spacetime dilaton couples to the worldsheet curvature: For the heterotic superstring, the worldsheet curvature couples to the real part of a chiral multiplet, and for Type II it couples to the real part of the sum of a vector multiplet and a tensor hypermultiplet. For the Type II superstring, this contradicts the standard folklore that only a hypermultiplet counts string…
In this lectures we outline the construction of pure spinor superstrings. We consider both the open and closed pure spinor superstrings in critical and noncritical dimensions and on flat and curved target spaces with RR flux. We exhibit the integrability properties of pure spinor superstrings on curved backgrounds with RR fluxes.
It is shown that the pure spinor formulation of the heterotic superstring in a generic gravitational and super Yang-Mills background has vanishing one-loop beta functions.
We construct heterotic string theories on spacetimes of the form R^{d-1,1} times N=2 linear dilaton, where d=6,4,2,0. There are two lines of supersymmetric theories descending from the two supersymmetric ten-dimensional heterotic theories. These have gauge groups which are lower rank subgroups of E_{8} times E_{8} and SO(32). On turning on a (2,2) deformation which makes the two dimensional part a smooth SL_{2}(R)/U(1) supercoset, the gauge groups get broken further. In the deformed theories, there are non-trivial moduli which are charged under the surviving gauge group in the case of d=6. We …
The general fluctuations, in the form of vertex operators, for the heterotic superstring in the pure spinor formalism are considered. The case of a flat background is reviewed and the case of a curved case is studied. The left-moving ghosts are pure spinors and the right-moving ghosts come from fixing the reparametrization invariance. The role of the reparametrization ghosts in the construction of the vertex operators is emphasized.
We study to what extent it is possible to generalise Berkovits' pure-spinor construction in d=10 to lower dimensions. Using a suitable definition of a ``pure'' spinor in d=4,6, we propose models analogous to the d=10 pure-spinor superstring in these dimensions. Similar models in d=2,3 are also briefly discussed.
In this note we study the preservation of the classical pure spinor BRST constraints under super T-duality transformations. We also determine the invariance of the one-loop conformal invariance and of the local gauge and Lorentz anomalies under the super T-dualities.
In this paper we study the pure spinor formulation of the superstring in $AdS_5\times S^5$ around point particle solutions of the classical equations of motion. As a particular example we quantize the pure spinor string in the BMN background.
We discuss the prepotential describing the effective field theory of N=2 heterotic superstring models. At the one loop-level the prepotential develops logarithmic singularities due to the appearance of charged massless states at particular surfaces in the moduli space of vector multiplets. These singularities modify the classical duality symmetry group which now becomes a representation of the fundamental group of the moduli space minus the singular surfaces. For the simplest two-moduli case, this fundamental group turns out to be a certain braid group and we determine the resulting full duali…
We discuss solutions of the heterotic string theory which are analogous to bosonic and superstring backgrounds related to coset conformal field theories. A class of exact `left-right symmetric' solutions is obtained by supplementing the metric, antisymmetric tensor and dilaton of the superstring solutions by the gauge field background equal to the generalised Lorentz connection with torsion. As in the superstring case, these backgrounds are $\a'$-independent, i.e. have a `semiclassical' form. The corresponding heterotic string sigma model is obtained from the combination of the (1,0) supersymm…
It is proven that the classical pure spinor superstring in an AdS_5 x S^5 background has a flat current depending on a continuous parameter. This generalizes the recent result of Bena, et al. for the classical Green-Schwarz superstring.
We study the non-minimal pure spinor string in a curved background. We find that the minimal BRST invariance implies the existence of a non-trivial stress-energy tensor for the minimal and non-minimal variables in the heterotic curved background. We find constraint equations for the b ghost. We construct the b ghost as a solution of these constraints.
Starting with a classical action where a pure spinor $λ^α$ is only a fundamental and dynamical variable, the pure spinor formalism for superparticle and superstring is derived by following the BRST formalism. In this formalism, not only the string variable $x^m$ but also the space-time spinor $θ^α$ are emerged as the Faddeev-Popov (FP) ghosts of a topological symmetry and its reducible symmetry. This study suggests that the fundamental theory behind the pure spinor formalism of the superstring might be a topological field theory.
The tree-level operator product expansion coefficients of the matter currents are calculated in the pure spinor formalism for type IIB superstring in the AdS(5)*S(5) background.
The pure spinor heterotic string in a generic super Yang-Mills and supergravity background is considered. We determine the one-loop BRST anomaly at the cohomological level. We prove that it can be absorbed by consistent corrections of the classical constraints due to Berkovits and Howe, in agreement with the Green-Schwarz cancelation mechanism.
We show that the Lax pair of the pure spinor superstring in AdS5xS5 admits a generalization where the generators of the superconformal algebra are replaced by the generators of some infinite-dimensional Lie superalgebra.
We study compactifications of the heterotic pure spinor superstring to six and four dimensions focusing on two simple Calabi-Yau orbifolds. We show that the correct spectrum can be reproduced only if, in the twisted sector, there remain exactly 5 and 2 pure spinor components untwisted, respectively. This naturally defines a "small" Hilbert space of untwisted variables. We point out that the cohomology of the reduced differential on this small Hilbert space can be used to describe the states in the untwisted sector, provided certain auxiliary constraints are defined. In dimension six, the misma…
Although it is not known how to covariantly quantize the Green-Schwarz (GS) superstring, there exists a semi-light-cone gauge choice in which the GS superstring can be quantized in a conformally invariant manner. In this paper, we prove that BRST quantization of the GS superstring in semi-light-cone gauge is equivalent to BRST quantization using the pure spinor formalism for the superstring.
We continue the study of the d=2,4,6 pure-spinor superstring models introduced in [1]. By explicitly solving the pure-spinor constraint we show that these theories have vanishing central charge and work out the (covariant) current algebra for the Lorentz currents. We argue that these super-Poincare covariant models may be thought of as compactifications of the superstring on CY_{4,3,2}, and take some steps toward making this precise by constructing a map to the RNS superstring variables. We also discuss the relation to the so called hybrid superstrings, which describe the same type of compacti…
We compute explicitly the first-order in $α'$ corrections to a family of solutions of the Heterotic Superstring effective action that describes fundamental strings with momentum along themselves, parallel to solitonic 5-branes with Kaluza-Klein monopoles (Gibbons-Hawking metrics) in their transverse space. These solutions correspond to 4-charge extremal black holes in 4 dimensions upon dimensional reduction on $\mathrm{T}^{6}$. We show that some of the $α'$ corrections can be cancelled by introducing solitonic $\mathrm{SU}(2)\times \mathrm{SU}(2)$ Yang-Mills fields, and that this family of $α'…
We present an integrable deformation of the $AdS_{5}\times S^{5}$ pure spinor action based on homological perturbation theory. Its equations of motion, Lax connection and BRST symmetry are discussed. The resulting model describes a pure spinor superstring in a generalized supergravity background.
In a previous paper, the BRST cohomology in the pure spinor formalism of the superstring was shown to coincide with the light-cone Green-Schwarz spectrum by using an SO(8) parameterization of the pure spinor. In this paper, the SO(9,1) Lorentz generators are explicitly constructed using this SO(8) parameterization, proving the Lorentz invariance of the pure spinor BRST cohomology.
In these lecture notes presented at the 2015 Villa de Leyva Summer School, we give an introduction to superstring theory. We begin by studying the particle and superparticle in order to get a better understanding on the superstring side. Afterwards, we review the pure spinor formalism and end by computing the scattering amplitude for three gravitons at tree-level.
In this thesis are presented two aplications of the sigma model for the superstring in the pure spinor formulation. The first aplication concerns the computation of the one-loop conformal invariance for the type II superstring, resulting in equations of motion written in superspace for the background fields coupled to the superstring. The second application is related to the BRST invariance of the heterotic superstring at the quantum level, which allows to find stringy corrections to the ten-dimensional super Yang-Mills/supergravity constraints.
We derive the conditions for the one-loop contribution to the cosmological constant to be exponentially suppressed in a class of heterotic string compactifications with three generations of chiral matter, where supersymmetry is spontaneously broken à la Scherk-Schwarz. Using techniques of partial unfolding based on the Hecke congruence subgroup $Γ_0(2)$ of the modular group to extract the leading asymptotics, we show that the super no-scale condition $n_B=n_F$ between the degeneracies of massless bosons $n_B$ and fermions $n_F$ in the full string spectrum is necessary but not sufficient, and n…
Notes taken by Oscar A. Bedoya of lectures of Nathan Berkovits in June 2009 at the Galileo Galilei Institute School "New Perspectives in String Theory". Topics include the pure spinor superparticle and superstring, tree and loop amplitudes, Ramond-Ramond backgrounds, and open problems.
We study the compactification of the pure spinor superstring down to four dimensions. We find that the compactified string is described by a conformal invariant system for both the four dimensional and for the compact six dimensional variables. The four dimensional sector is found to be invariant under a non-critical N=2 superconformal transformations.
The physical states of D=5 holomorphic Chern-Simons theory correspond to on-shell D=10 open superstring states in the cohomology of $q_+$, where $q_+$ is one of the 16 spacetime supersymmetry generators. Scattering amplitudes of these states can be computed either using the usual Ramond-Neveu-Schwarz (RNS) superstring prescription with N=1 worldsheet supersymmetry, or using a topological $\hat c$=5 string theory with twisted N=2 worldsheet supersymmetry. It will be argued that the relation between D=5 holomophic Chern-Simons and the RNS superstring is identical to the relation between the the …
The discovery of pure spinor formalism makes the computation of superstring scattering amplitudes possible. In this paper, we will illustrate how computer algebra system Cadabra is used in computing the supersymmetric amplitude in pure spinor formalism and provide the source code that computes the tree-level massless 5-gluon amplitude.
The pure spinor formulation of the ten-dimensional superstring leads to manifestly supersymmetric loop amplitudes, expressed as integrals in pure spinor superspace. This paper explores different methods to evaluate these integrals and then uses them to calculate the kinematic factors of the one-loop and two-loop massless four-point amplitudes involving two and four Ramond states.
We examine the surface term for the BRST transformation of the open pure spinor superstring in an AdS_5 x S^5 background. We find that the boundary condition to eliminate the surface term leads to a classification of possible configurations of 1/2 supersymmetric D-branes.
In the framework of the pure spinor approach of superstring theories, we describe the Y-formalism and use it to compute the picture raised b-field. At the end we discuss briefly the new, non-minimal formalism of Berkovits and the related non-minimal b-field.
The SO(32) heterotic superstring on a Calabi-Yau manifold can spontaneously break supersymmetry at one-loop order even when it is unbroken at tree-level. It is known that calculating the supersymmetry-breaking effects in this model gives a relatively accessible test case of the subtleties of superstring perturbation theory in the RNS formalism. In the present paper, we calculate the relevant amplitudes in the pure spinor approach to superstring perturbation theory, and show that the regulator used in computing loop amplitudes in the pure spinor formalism leads to subtleties somewhat analogous …
We elaborate on the recently discovered spinor-vector duality in realistic free fermionic heterotic vacua. We emphasize the interpretation of the freely-acting orbifolds carried out on the six internal dimensions as coordinate-dependent compactifications; they play a central role in the duality, especially because of their ability to break the right-moving superconformal algebra of the space-time supersymmetric heterotic vacua. These considerations lead to a simple and intuitive proof of the spinor-vector duality, and to the formulation of explicit rules to find the dual of a given model. We d…
We examine the possibility of constructing analytical solutions describing marginal deformations in the open superstring field theory that is based on the non-minimal pure-spinor formalism. It is found out that some methods used for constructing solutions of bosonic and RNS string field theories do not seem to generalize to the pure-spinor case, while other methods do lead to reliable analytical solutions.
It has recently been shown that the ten-dimensional superstring can be quantized using the BRST operator $Q=\ointλ^αd_α$ where $λ^α$ is a pure spinor satisfying $λγ^m λ=0$ and $d_α$ is the fermionic supersymmetric derivative. In this paper, the pure spinor version of superstring theory is formulated in a curved supergravity background and it is shown that nilpotency and holomorphicity of the pure spinor BRST operator imply the on-shell superspace constraints of the supergravity background. This is shown to lowest order in $α'$ for the heterotic and Type II superstrings, thus providing a compac…
We worked out the Batalin-Fradkin-Tyutin (BFT) conversion program of second class constraints to first class constraints in the GS superstring using light cone coordinates. By applying this systematic procedure we were able to obtain a gauge system that is equivalent to the recent model proposed by Berkovits and Marchioro to relate the GS superstring to the pure spinor formalism.
In a previous paper, we introduced a heterotic standard model and discussed its basic properties. This vacuum has the spectrum of the MSSM with one additional pair of Higgs-Higgs conjugate fields and a small number of uncharged moduli. In this paper, the requisite vector bundles are formulated; specifically, stable, holomorphic bundles with structure group SU(N) on smooth Calabi-Yau threefolds with Z_3 x Z_3 fundamental group. A method for computing bundle cohomology is presented and used to evaluate the cohomology groups of the standard model bundles. It is shown how to determine the Z_3 x Z_…
