Non-Abelian Born–Infeld action and Type I–heterotic duality (I): Heterotic F6 terms at two loops

Abstract

We study the two-loop F 6 interactions in SO(32) heterotic superstring theory in D=10. By using the generalized Riemann identity we are able to determine the single-trace part of the effective action up to a few constants which are related to certain scattering amplitudes. This two-loop heterotic result is related by duality to Type I interactions at the tree level. However, it turns out to be completely different from any sort of non-Abelian generalization of Born–Infeld theory. We offer an explanation of this discrepancy.