Type IIA/IIB string duality for targets with abelian isometries

TL;DR

This paper investigates T-duality in supersymmetric string theories with abelian isometries, showing it relates type IIA and IIB strings despite anomalies, extending known results to more general backgrounds.

Contribution

It extends the understanding of T-duality from toroidal compactifications to general backgrounds with abelian isometries, accounting for anomalies.

Findings

T-duality relates type IIA and IIB strings in backgrounds with abelian isometries.

The relation holds despite anomalies, generalizing previous results.

The analysis applies to world sheets of any genus.

Abstract

We examine T-duality transformations for supersymmetric strings with target space geometry with compact abelian isometries. We consider the partition function of these models and we show that although T-duality is not a symmetry, due to an anomaly, it relates type IIA to type IIB strings. In this way we extend the corresponding result for toroidal compactification to the general case of non-trivial backgrounds with abelian isometries and for world sheets of any genera.