Effective actions of non-geometric fivebranes

Abstract

An interesting consequence of string dualities is that they reveal situations where the geometry of a string background appears to be globally ill-defined, a phenomenon usually referred to as non-geometry. On the other hand, string theory contains extended objects with non-trivial monodromy around them, often dubbed defect or exotic branes in co-dimension two. We determine and examine the worldvolume actions and the couplings of certain such branes. In particular, based on specific chains of T and S-dualities, we derive the DBI and WZ actions, which describe the dynamics of type IIB fivebranes as well as their couplings to the appropriate gauge potentials associated to mixed symmetry tensors. Based on these actions we discuss how these branes act as sources of non-geometric fluxes. In one case this flux is what is usually termed Q flux, associated to a T-fold compactification, while in the S-dual case a type of non-geometry related to the Ramond-Ramond sector is encountered.