String Theory Without Branes

Abstract

We present a class of solvable models that resemble string theories in many respects but have a strikingly different non-perturbative sector. In particular, there are no exponentially small contributions to perturbation theory in the string coupling, which normally are associated with branes and related objects. Perturbation theory is no longer an asymptotic expansion, and so can be completely re-summed to yield all the non-perturbative physics. We examine a number of other properties of the theories, for example constructing and examining the physics of loop operators, which can be computed exactly, and gain considerable understanding of the difference between these new theories and the more familiar ones, including the possibility of how to interpolate between the two types. Interestingly, the models we exhibit contain a family of zeros of the partition function which suggest a novel phase structure. The theories are defined naturally by starting with models that yield well-understood string theories and allowing a flux-like background parameter to take half-integer rather than integer values. The family of models thus obtained are seeded by functions that are intimately related to the classic rational solutions of the Painleve II equation, and a family of generalisations.