Higher Dimensional Yang-Mills Theories and Topological Terms

Abstract

Higher dimensional generalisations of self-duality conditions and of theta angle terms are analysed in Yang-Mills theories. For the theory on a torus, the torus metric and various antisymmetric tensors are viewed as coupling constants related by U-duality, arising from background expectation values of supergravity fields for D-brane or matrix theories. At certain special points in the moduli space of coupling constants certain branes or instantons are found to dominate the functional integral. The possibility of lifting chiral or supersymmetric theories to higher dimensions is discussed.