Boundary fixed points, enhanced gauge symmetry and singular bundles on K3 Original Research Article

We investigate certain fixed points in the boundary conformal field theory representation of type IIA D-branes on Gepner points of K3. They correspond geometrically to degenerate brane configurations, and physically lead to enhanced gauge symmetries on the world-volume. Non-abelian gauge groups arise if the stabilizer group of the fixed points is realized projectively, which is similar to D-branes on orbifolds with discrete torsion. Moreover, the fixed point boundary states can be resolved into several irreducible components. These correspond to bound states at threshold and can be viewed as (non-locally free) sub-sheaves of semi-stable sheaves. Thus, the BCFT fixed points appear to carry two-fold geometrical information: on the one hand they probe the boundary of the instanton moduli space on K3, on the other hand they probe discrete torsion in D-geometry.