Gauge/Gravity Duality in Heterotic String Theory

TL;DR

This paper constructs gravity duals for little string theories within heterotic string frameworks, revealing non-Kahler geometries with cycles that encode confinement and supersymmetry, and explores duality sequences including M-theory transitions.

Contribution

It provides explicit heterotic string backgrounds with non-Kahler geometries as gravity duals for confining little string theories, incorporating novel duality sequences and supersymmetry preservation.

Findings

Constructed heterotic gravity duals with non-Kahler manifolds.

Identified non-abelian global symmetries from bundles and orbifolds.

Explored duality sequences including M-theory torsional manifolds.

Abstract

Gravity duals for little string theories --- which give rise to four-dimensional theories that undergo permanent confinement in the infrared --- have not been studied in great detail. We address this question in the framework of heterotic SO(32) and E_8 x E_8 string theory, constructing these backgrounds by wrapping heterotic five-branes on calibrated two-cycles of non-Kahler resolved conifolds. Related to deformations of the underlying little string theories, we find numerous analytic solutions preserving N = 1 supersymmetry in four-dimensions. These theories all have non-abelian global symmetries that generally arise from both the heterotic vector bundle and from certain orbifold states. In the decoupling limit, we argue that the gravity duals are given by non-Kahler manifolds that have both blown-up two-cycles and three-cycles at the origin. We argue this following certain duality sequences that include M-theory torsional manifolds at an intermediate step, which help us to construct new type I' gauge/gravity duality pairs. In the M-theory duality frame, we also elucidate new sequences of flips and flops.