A Unifying Topological Action for Heterotic and Type II Superstring Theories

TL;DR

This paper presents a unified topological sigma-model framework that encompasses both heterotic and type II superstring actions through different gauge-fixings, highlighting their common origin.

Contribution

It introduces a single topological action from which heterotic and type II superstring theories can be derived via distinct gauge choices, unifying their descriptions.

Findings

Heterotic and type II superstring actions are gauge fixings of the same topological model.

The model is based on a topological gauge symmetry involving bosonic and fermionic coordinates.

Potential relation between fermionic coordinates and space-time spinor superpartners is discussed.

Abstract

The heterotic and type II superstring actions are identified in different anomaly-free decompositions of a single topological sigma-model action depending on bosonic and fermionic coordinates, $X^\mu$ and $\r^A$ respectively, and of their topological ghosts. This model results from gauge-fixing the topological gauge symmetry $\delta X^\mu = \epsilon^\mu (z,\bar z)$ ($\mu =1,2,\dots, 10$) and $\delta \r^\alpha= \epsilon^\alpha (z,\bar z)$. ($\alpha=1,2.\dots, 16$). From another viewpoint the heterotic and type II superstring actions emerge as two different gauge-fixings of the same closed two-form. Comments are also made concerning the possibility of relating $\rho^\alpha$ to a Majorana-Weyl space-time spinor superpartner of $X^\mu$.