Type-II Superstrings and New Spacetime Superalgebras

Abstract

We present a geometric formulation of type-IIA and -IIB superstring theories in which the Wess-Zumino term is second order in the supersymmetric currents. The currents are constructed using supergroup manifolds corresponding to superalgebras: the IIA superalgebra derived from M-algebra and the IIB superalgebra obtained by a T-duality transformation of the IIA superalgebra. We find that a slight modification of the IIB superalgebra is needed to describe D-string theories, in which the U(1) gauge field on the worldsheet is explicitly constructed in terms of D-string charges. A unification of the superalgebras in a (10+1)-dimensional N=2 superalgebra is discussed too.