New curves from branes Original Research Article

We consider configurations of Neveu-Schwarz fivebranes, Dirichlet fourbranes and an orientifold sixplane in type IIA string theory. Upon lifting the configuration to M-theory and proposing a description of how to include the effects of the orientifold sixplane we derive the curves describing the Coulomb branch of N = 2 gauge theories with orthogonal and symplectic gauge groups, product gauge groups of the form ⊗i SU(ki) ⋇ SO(N) and ⊗i SU(ki) ⋇ Sp (N). We also propose new curves describing theories with unitary gauge groups and matter in the symmetric or antisymmetric representation.