Putting string /string duality to the test Original Research Article

After simultaneous compactification of spacetime and worldvolume on K3, the D = 10 heterotic fivebrane with gauge group SO(32) behaves like a D = 6 heterotic string with gauge group SO(28) × SU(2), but with Kac-Moody levels different from those of the fundamental string. Thus the string/ fivebrane duality conjecture in D = 10 gets replaced by a string/string duality conjecture in D = 6. Since D = 6 strings are better understood than D = 10 fivebranes, this provides a more reliable laboratory in which to test the conjecture. According to string/string duality, the Green-Schwarz factorization of the D = 6 spacetime anomaly polynomial I8 intoX4X̃44 means that just as X4 is the σ-model anomaly polynomial of the fundamental string worldsheet so X̃4 should be the corresponding polynomial of the dual string worldsheet. To test this idea we perform a classical dual string calculation of 94 and find agreement with the quantum fundamental string result. This also provides an a posteriori justification for assumptions made in a previous paper on string/fivebrane duality. Finally we speculate on the relevance of string/string duality to the vacuum degeneracy problem.