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Small Instantons in String Theory

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arxiv hep-th/9511030 v1 pith:A3O5WROQ submitted 1995-11-04 hep-th

Edward Witten This is my paper · ORCID
classification hep-th
keywords stringheteroticinstantonsgaugeinstantonquantumsymmetrytheory
verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal
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abstract

A long-standing puzzle about the heterotic string has been what happens when an instanton shrinks to zero size. It is argued here that the answer at the quantum level is that an extra $SU(2)$ gauge symmetry appears that is supported in the core of the instanton. Thus in particular the quantum heterotic string has vacua with higher rank than is possible in conformal field theory. When $k$ instantons collapse at the same point, the enhanced gauge symmetry is $Sp(k)$. These results, which can be tested by comparison to Dirichlet five-branes of Type I superstrings and to the ADHM construction of instantons, give the first example for the heterotic string of a non-perturbative phenomenon that cannot be turned off by making the coupling smaller. They have applications to several interesting puzzles about string duality.

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Cited by 3 Pith papers

Reviewed papers in the Pith corpus that reference this work. Sorted by Pith novelty score. Full citation record

  1. Towards the Non-Perturbative Completion of 4d N=1 Effective Theories of Gravity

    hep-th 2025-10 conditional novelty 7.0 of 10

    Small-volume regimes of flop curves in 4d N=1 F-theory require non-perturbative states—blow-up moduli and D3-string excitations—to complete the locally enhanced N=2 spectrum.

  2. Non-supersymmetric branes and discrete topological terms

    hep-th 2025-07 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

    A direct computation from the tentative NS5-brane spectrum gives the opposite Z3 topological term (1/3 vs 2/3) from Tachikawa-Zhang, so the spectrum or the inflow interpretation must change.

  3. Gauge Origami and BPS/CFT correspondence

    hep-th 2025-02 conditional novelty 5.0 of 10

    The gauge origami partition function on C4 is realized as a correlation function of BPS qq-character operators, with D6 and D8 characters labeled by plane and solid partitions.

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