Anomaly Inflow on Orientifold Planes

TL;DR

This paper investigates six-dimensional supersymmetric orientifold models with intersecting branes and planes, demonstrating how gravitational anomalies on orientifold planes are locally canceled by new couplings, under specific distribution assumptions.

Contribution

It introduces a mechanism for local cancellation of gravitational anomalies on orientifold planes via anomalous couplings in intersecting brane models.

Findings

Anomalous gravitational couplings on orientifold planes can cancel local anomalies.

Anomaly distribution among intersections is crucial for local cancellation.

Models maintain consistency through these local anomaly cancellations.

Abstract

We examine some six-dimensional orientifold models with $N = 1$ supersymmetry, which can be realised as intersecting 7-branes and 7-planes. These models are studied in the light of recent work showing that orientifold planes carry anomalous gravitational couplings on their world-volume. We show that gravitational anomalies can be locally cancelled by these new couplings at every point in the internal space, under the assumption that the anomaly residing on orientifold planes is distributed in a particular way among brane-plane and plane-plane intersections.