Orientifolds, Branes, and Duality of 4D Gauge Theories

TL;DR

This paper extends D-brane constructions in string theory to realize electric/magnetic dualities in 4D N=1 supersymmetric SO(N_c) and USp(N_c) gauge theories, incorporating orientifold planes and new intersection features.

Contribution

It introduces a novel brane setup with orientifold planes to derive dualities for SO and USp gauge theories, expanding previous work on U(N_c) theories.

Findings

Successfully constructs dualities for SO and USp gauge theories using brane setups.

Identifies new features from orientifold intersections that are crucial for duality structure.

Provides a string theory realization of gauge theory dualities.

Abstract

Recently, a D-brane construction in type IIA string theory was shown to yield the electric/magnetic duality of four dimensional N=1 supersymmetric U(N_c) gauge theories with N_f flavours of quark. We present here an extension of that construction which yields the electric/magnetic duality for the SO(N_c) and USp(N_c) gauge theories with N_f quarks, by adding an orientifold plane which is consistent with the supersymmetry. Due to the intersection of the orientifold plane with the NS-NS fivebranes already present, new features arise which are crucial in determining the correct final structure of the dualities.