On S-Duality of Toroidally Compactified Type IIB String Effective Action

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that the SL(2, R) symmetry, related to S-duality, persists in the toroidally compactified type IIB string effective action, including its T-dual type IIA version, indicating a fundamental symmetry of the theory.

Contribution

It clarifies how a Z2 subgroup of SL(2, R) induces S-duality in the reduced theory and shows the invariance extends to the T-dual type IIA action, suggesting the symmetry is fundamental.

Findings

SL(2, R) invariance in compactified type IIB action

Z2 subgroup responsible for strong-weak coupling duality

SL(2, R) symmetry also in T-dual type IIA action

Abstract

It has been shown recently that the toroidally compactified type IIB string effective action possesses an SL(2, R) invariance as a consequence of the corresponding symmetry in ten dimensions when the self-dual five-form field strength is set to zero. By working in the string frame we clarify how a Z$_2$ subgroup of this SL(2, R) group responsible for producing the strong-weak coupling duality in the ten dimensional theory produces the same symmetry for the reduced theory. In the absence of the full covariant action of type IIB supergravity theory, we show that the T-dual version of type IIA string effective action (including the R-R terms) in D=9 also possesses the SL(2, R) invariance indicating that this symmetry is present for the full type IIB string effective action compactified on torus.