Open/Closed String Dualities and Seiberg Duality from Geometric Transitions in M-theory

TL;DR

This paper introduces a general geometric method in M-theory to analyze open/closed string dualities and Seiberg duality, utilizing T-duality, brane configurations, and M5 brane factorization to understand gauge theory phenomena.

Contribution

It presents a novel approach connecting geometric transitions in M-theory with gauge theory dualities, including Seiberg duality, for a broad class of configurations.

Findings

Derived field theory information from M5 brane factorization.

Connected Seiberg duality to birational flops in geometry.

Extended analysis to include flavors and orientifolds.

Abstract

We propose a general method to study open/closed string dualities from transitions in M theory which is valid for a large class of geometrical configurations. By T-duality we can transform geometrically engineered configurations into N = 1 brane configurations and study the transitions of the corresponding branes by lifting the configurations to M-theory. We describe the transformed degenerated M5 branes and extract the field theory information on gluino condensation by factorization of the Seiberg-Witten curve. We also include massive flavors and orientifolds and discuss Seiberg duality which appears in this case as a birational flop. After the transition, the Seiberg duality becomes an abelian electric-magnetic duality.