Type IIA-Heterotic Duals With Maximal Supersymmetry

TL;DR

This paper constructs dual pairs of Type IIA and heterotic string theories with maximal supersymmetry using orbifold techniques, extending known theories and proposing new dualities in lower dimensions.

Contribution

It introduces a method to generate orbifold dual pairs with maximal supersymmetry via automorphisms of K3 surfaces, expanding the landscape of known dual theories.

Findings

Extended the series of heterotic theories with maximal supersymmetry.

Generalized the Schwarz and Sen duality proposal for reduced rank theories.

Constructed novel Type IIA orbifolds as duals to heterotic models.

Abstract

Using finite abelian automorphism groups of $K3$ we construct orbifold candidates for Type IIA-heterotic dual pairs with maximal supersymmetry in six and lower dimensions. On the heterotic side, these results extend the series of known reduced rank theories with maximal supersymmetry. The corresponding Type IIA theories generalize the Schwarz and Sen proposal for the dual of the simplest of the reduced rank theories constructed as a novel Type IIA $\IZ_2$ orbifold.