Poisson-Lie T-duality defects and target space fusion

Abstract

Topological defects have long been known to encode symmetries and dualities between physical systems. In the context of string theory, defects have been intensively studied at the level of the worldsheet. Although marked by a number of pioneering milestones, the target space picture of defects is much less understood. In this paper, we show, at the level of the target space, that Poisson-Lie T-duality can be encoded as a topological defect. With this result at hand, we can postulate the kernel capturing the Fourier-Mukai transform associated to the action of Poisson-Lie T-duality on the RR-sector. Topological defects have the remarkable property that they can be fused together or, alternatively, with worldsheet boundary conditions. We study how fusion of the proposed generalised T-duality topological defect consistently leads to the known duality transformations for boundary conditions. Finally, taking a step back from generalised T-duality, we tackle the general problem of understanding the effect of fusion at the level of the target space. We propose to use the framework of Dirac geometry and formulate the fusion of topological defects and D-branes in this language.