1994/10/31 by C.M. Hull, C. M. Hull, P.K. Townsend +1 · 4 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Quantum Chromodynamics and Particle Interactions #Quantum Electrodynamics and Casimir Effect #hep-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1016/0550-3213(94)00559-w
published as Nucl.Phys.B438:109-137,1995 · 45 pages. Some minor corrections made and some references added
arxiv created 1995/01/13 · openalex publication_date 1995/03/01 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04
The effective action for type II string theory compactified on a six torus is N=8 supergravity, which is known to have an E7 duality symmetry. We show that this is broken by quantum effects to a discrete subgroup, E7(\Z), which contains both the T-duality group SO(6,6;\Z) and the S-duality group SL(2;\Z). We present evidence for the conjecture that E7(\Z) is an exact \lq U-duality' symmetry of type II string theory. This conjecture requires certain extreme black hole states to be identified with massive modes of the fundamental string. The gauge bosons from the Ramond-Ramond sector couple not to string excitations but to solitons. We discuss similar issues in the context of toroidal string compactifications to other dimensions, compactifications of the type II string on K3× T2 and compactifications of eleven-dimensional supermembrane theory.