N=4 Topological Amplitudes and String Effective Action

Antoniadis, I.; Hohenegger, S.; Narain, K. S.

N=4 Topological Amplitudes and String Effective Action

Authors

Antoniadis, I.

Hohenegger, S.

Narain, K. S.

Description

Certain scattering amplitudes in the gravitational sector of type II string theory on K3 x T^2 are found to be computed by correlation functions of the N=4 topological string. This analysis extends the already known results for K3 by Berkovits and Vafa, which correspond to six-dimensional terms in the effective action, involving four Riemann tensors and 4g-4 graviphotons, R^4T^{4g-4}, at genus g. We find two additional classes of topological amplitudes that use the full internal SCFT of K3 x T^2. One of these string amplitudes is mapped to a 1-loop contribution in the heterotic theory, and is studied explicitly. It corresponds to the four-dimensional term R^2(ddΦ)^2T^{2g-4}, with Φa Kaluza-Klein graviscalar from T^2. Finally, the generalization of the harmonicity relation for its moduli dependent coupling coefficient is obtained and shown to contain an anomaly, generalizing the holomorphic anomaly of the N=2 topological partition function F_g.
61 pages, 3 figures