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arXiv · hep-th/9907026

Superpotentials and Membrane Instantons

J. A. Harvey·G. Moore
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Abstract

We investigate nonperturbative effects in M-theory compactifications arising from wrapped membranes. In particular, we show that in $d=4, \mathcal{N}=1$ compactifications along manifolds of $G_2$ holonomy, membranes wrapped on rigid supersymmetric 3-cycles induce nonzero corrections to the superpotential. Thus, membrane instantons destabilize many M-theory compactifications. Our computation shows that the low energy description of membrane physics is usefully described in terms of three-dimensional topological field theories, and the superpotential is expressed in terms of topological invariants of the 3-cycle. We discuss briefly some applications of these results. For example, using mirror symmetry we derive a counting formula for supersymmetric three-cycles in certain Calabi-Yau manifolds.

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J. A. Harvey, G. Moore. 1999-07-06. Superpotentials and Membrane Instantons. https://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/9907026

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