Electric/magnetic duality and its stringy origins

TL;DR

The work addresses how electric/magnetic duality in $N=4$ (and certain $N=2$) gauge theories arises from an underlying string/string duality, linking strong and weak coupling descriptions. It develops a cohesive picture where $S$-duality, $T$-duality and $U$-duality weave together across dimensions, and shows how four-dimensional dualities can be understood as manifestations of six-dimensional string dualities, including a concrete $N=4$ example with heterotic and Type II duality on $K3$. The paper introduces the duality of dualities, connects elementary string states to solitons and extreme black holes, and proposes a four-dimensional string/string/string triality among heterotic, Type IIA, and Type IIB strings. It situates these dualities within a broader web that includes membranes, fivebranes, and M-theory, suggesting a unified underlying framework with deep implications for confinement, moduli spaces, and non-perturbative dynamics. Overall, it contributes a conceptual bridge between gauge theory dualities and the non-perturbative structure of string theory, advancing the program of unifying gravity with gauge interactions through dualities and extended objects.

Abstract

We review electric/magnetic duality in $N=4$ (and certain $N=2$) globally supersymmetric gauge theories and show how this duality, which relates strong to weak coupling, follows as a consequence of a string/string duality. Black holes, eleven dimensions and supermembranes also have a part to play in the big picture.