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arxiv: hep-th/9510169 · v1 · submitted 1995-10-23 · ✦ hep-th

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Evidence for Heterotic - Type I String Duality

Joseph Polchinski , Edward Witten
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classification ✦ hep-th
keywords heteroticstringtypetheoryperturbationdualityevidencesame
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A study is made of the implications of heterotic string $T$-duality and extended gauge symmetry for the conjectured equivalence of heterotic and Type I superstrings. While at first sight heterotic string world-sheet dynamics appears to conflict with Type I perturbation theory, a closer look shows that Type I perturbation theory ``miraculously'' breaks down, in some cases via novel mechanisms, whenever the heterotic string has massless particles not present in Type I perturbation theory. This strongly suggests that the two theories actually are equivalent. As further evidence in the same direction, we show that the Dirichlet one-brane of type I string theory has the same world-sheet structure as the heterotic string.

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