Recent Developments in String Theory

After briefly reviewing basic concepts of perturbative string theory, we explain in simple terms some of the new findings that created excitement among the string physicists. These developments include non-perturbative dualities and a unified picture that embraces the so-far known theories. (An overview for non-experts)Comment: 16 p, latex, lprocl.sty, 12 figs, Contribution to the Proceedings of Lepton-Photon 97. Continuous updates at http://nxth21.cern.ch/~lerche/papers/strings.ps.g

On the Heterotic/F-Theory Duality in Eight Dimensions

We review quantitative tests on the duality between the heterotic string on T^2 and F-theory on K3. On the heterotic side, certain threshold corrections to the effective action can be exactly computed at one-loop order, and the issue is to reproduce these from geometric quantities pertaining to the K3 surface. In doing so we learn about certain non-perturbative interactions of 7-branes.Comment: latex, 10 figs, contribution to the proceedings of Cargese 199

Chiral Rings in Topological (W-)Gravity

Talk given at the 26th Workshop: ``From Superstrings to Supergravity", Erice - Sicily, 5-12 December 1992. We review the superconformal properties of 2d matter coupled to gravity, and extensions thereof. Focusing on topological strings, we recall how the superconformal structure helps to provide a direct link between Liouville theory coupled to matter, and matrix models. We also construct an infinite class of new theories based on $W$-gravity.Comment: 13pages, plain te

Non-Abelian Born-Infeld Action and Type I - Heterotic Duality (II): Nonrenormalization Theorems

Type I - heterotic duality in D=10 predicts various relations and constraints on higher order F^n couplings at different string loop levels on both sides. We prove the vanishing of two-loop corrections to the heterotic F^4 terms, which is one of the basic predictions from this duality. Furthermore, we show that the heterotic F^5 and (CP even) F^6 couplings are not renormalized at one loop. These results strengthen the conjecture that in D=10 any Tr F^(2n) coupling appears only at the disc tree-level on type I side and at (n-1)-loop level on the heterotic side. Our non-renormalization theorems are valid in any heterotic string vacuum with sixteen supercharges.Comment: 35 pages, harvmac; cosmetic changes; final version to appear in NP

Unstable magnetosonic waves in a relativistic plasma

Linearized equations for unstable waves in relativistic plasm

1/4 BPS States and Non-Perturbative Couplings in N=4 String Theories

We compute certain 2K+4-point, one-loop couplings in the type IIA string compactified on K3 x T^2, which are related to a topological index on this manifold. Their special feature is that they are sensitive to only short and intermediate BPS multiplets. The couplings derive from underlying prepotentials G[K](T,U), which can be nicely summed up into a fundamental generating function. In the dual heterotic string on T^6, the amplitudes describe non-perturbative gravitational corrections to K-loop amplitudes due to bound states of fivebrane instantons with heterotic world-sheet instantons. We argue, as a consequence, that our results also give information about instanton configurations in six dimensional Sp(2k) gauge theories on T^6.Comment: 32 p, harvmac, 1 fig. Revision: taking the fermionic contractions into account, the K3 elliptic genus disappear

Instanton sums and five-dimensional gauge theories

We analyze the vector multiplet prepotential of d=4, N=2 type IIA compactifications. We find that the worldsheet instanton corrections have a natural interpretation as one-loop corrections in five dimensions, with the extra dimension being compactified on a circle of radius $g_{s}\ell_{s}$. We argue that the relation between spacetime and worldsheet instantons is natural from this point of view. We also discuss the map between the type IIA worldsheet instantons and the spacetime instantons in the heterotic dual.Comment: 33 pages, uses harvmac.tex; four-dimensional limit in sec. 3.2 corrected, correct hyphenation in titl

Exceptional SW Geometry from ALE Fibrations

We show that the genus 34 Seiberg-Witten curve underlying $N=2$ Yang-Mills theory with gauge group $E_6$ yields physically equivalent results to the manifold obtained by fibration of the $E_6$ ALE singularity. This reconciles a puzzle raised by $N=2$ string duality

Integrality theorems in the theory of topological strings

We give a simplified derivation of the expression of instanton numbers and of mirror map in terms of Frobenius map on p-adic cohomology and use this expression to prove integrality theorems. Modifying this proof we verify that the Aganagic-Vafa formulas for the number of holomorphic disks can be expressed in terms of Frobenius map on p-adic relative cohomology; this expression permits us to prove integrality of this number.Comment: 33 pages, new results in the last section. Appendix adde