Charged Chiral Fermions from M5-Branes

TL;DR

This paper explains how charged chiral fermions emerge from M5-branes wrapped on multi-centred Taub-NUT spaces, connecting M-theory and D-brane perspectives through a five-dimensional WZWN-like model.

Contribution

It demonstrates the origin of charged chiral fermions in M5-brane worldvolume theory, bridging M-theory and D-brane descriptions with a novel five-dimensional topological model.

Findings

Charged chiral fermions arise from M5-branes on Taub-NUT spaces.

The fermions are described by a five-dimensional WZWN-like model.

The model explains the emergence of charged states from smooth M5-brane configurations.

Abstract

We study M5-branes wrapped on a multi-centred Taub-NUT space. Reducing to String Theory on the circle fibration leads to D4-branes intersecting with D6-branes. D-braneology shows that there are additional charged chiral fermions from the open strings which stretch between the D4-branes and D6-branes. From the M-theory point of view the appearance of these charged states is mysterious as the M5-branes are wrapped on a smooth manifold. In this paper we show how these states arise in the M5-brane worldvolume theory and argue that are governed by a WZWN-like model where the topological term is five-dimensional.