Wrapping the M Theory Five-Brane on K3

TL;DR

This paper shows how wrapping an M5-brane on K3 results in a heterotic string in seven dimensions, and introduces a T duality invariant world-sheet action for the heterotic string.

Contribution

It provides a new formulation of the heterotic string's world-sheet action with manifest T duality and connects M-theory branes to heterotic strings via K3 compactification.

Findings

M5-brane wrapping on K3 yields heterotic string in 7D

New T duality invariant world-sheet action formulated

Establishes a link between M-theory and heterotic string via compactification

Abstract

Using a recently constructed M5-brane world-volume action, we demonstrate that wrapping the M5-brane on K3 gives the heterotic string in seven dimensions. To facilitate the comparison, a new version of the world-sheet action for the Narain-compactified heterotic string, with manifest T duality invariance, is formulated.