Quantum properties of the heterotic five-brane

TL;DR

This paper investigates the quantum anomalies of the heterotic five-brane sigma model and shows how they can be absorbed by modifying superspace constraints consistent with supergravity.

Contribution

It demonstrates the necessity of k-anomalies in the heterotic five-brane sigma model and proposes a method to absorb them through superspace constraint modifications.

Findings

Anomalies are absorbed by superspace constraint modifications

Modified Bianchi-identity $dH_7=X_8$ is satisfied

Quantum deformation of torsion constraint is identified

Abstract

We find that the conjectured heterotic SO(32) five-brane sigma model develops necessarily k-anomalies, and we investigate their form. We show that these anomalies can be absorbed by modifications of the superspace constraints, that satisfy automatically the modified Bianchi-identity $dH_7=X_8$ of N=1, D=10 supergravity. The k-anomalies induce in particular a quantum deformation of the torsion constraint $T_{\alpha\beta}^a=2\gamma_{\alpha\beta}^a$.