Quantcast
  • Register
PhysicsOverflow is a next-generation academic platform for physicists and astronomers, including a community peer review system and a postgraduate-level discussion forum analogous to MathOverflow.

Welcome to PhysicsOverflow! PhysicsOverflow is an open platform for community peer review and graduate-level Physics discussion.

Please help promote PhysicsOverflow ads elsewhere if you like it.

News

PO is now at the Physics Department of Bielefeld University!

New printer friendly PO pages!

Migration to Bielefeld University was successful!

Please vote for this year's PhysicsOverflow ads!

Please do help out in categorising submissions. Submit a paper to PhysicsOverflow!

... see more

Tools for paper authors

Submit paper
Claim Paper Authorship

Tools for SE users

Search User
Reclaim SE Account
Request Account Merger
Nativise imported posts
Claim post (deleted users)
Import SE post

Users whose questions have been imported from Physics Stack Exchange, Theoretical Physics Stack Exchange, or any other Stack Exchange site are kindly requested to reclaim their account and not to register as a new user.

Public \(\beta\) tools

Report a bug with a feature
Request a new functionality
404 page design
Send feedback

Attributions

(propose a free ad)

Site Statistics

205 submissions , 163 unreviewed
5,047 questions , 2,200 unanswered
5,345 answers , 22,709 comments
1,470 users with positive rep
816 active unimported users
More ...

  H-flux by any other name

+ 2 like - 0 dislike
1050 views

There are more than a few papers referring to H-flux and/or H-twist etc. Is there anywhere a survey relating these variants?

This post imported from StackExchange MathOverflow at 2014-08-10 09:05 (UCT), posted by SE-user Jim Stasheff
asked Oct 30, 2013 in Theoretical Physics by Jim Stasheff (60 points) [ no revision ]
retagged Nov 21, 2014 by dimension10

1 Answer

+ 3 like - 0 dislike

The $B$-field is a massless excitation present in the NS-NS spectrum of the superstring. It is a spacetime 2-form. What is generally called $H$ is the corresponding field-strength : $H=dB$, it is a (spacetime) 3-form. In the simplest situations, the condition $H=0$, i.e. $B$ closed, is a natural constraint on a string background. Nevertheless, in more complicated situations, we can have $H \neq 0$, i.e. a non-trivial "H-flux", defining a "H-twist" of the more common cases with $H=0$.

Remark: I am not sure to fully understand the meaning of the question. 

answered Aug 10, 2014 by 40227 (5,140 points) [ revision history ]

Just to point out that when using a closed 3-form H to twist de Rham cohomology (i.e. the rational image of degree-3 twisting of K-theory) it is crucial that H not be exact. The thing is that the B-field is in general only locally given by a 2-form and H is hence in general only locally exact (as every closed form is). 

Your answer

Please use answers only to (at least partly) answer questions. To comment, discuss, or ask for clarification, leave a comment instead.
To mask links under text, please type your text, highlight it, and click the "link" button. You can then enter your link URL.
Please consult the FAQ for as to how to format your post.
This is the answer box; if you want to write a comment instead, please use the 'add comment' button.
Live preview (may slow down editor)   Preview
Your name to display (optional):
Privacy: Your email address will only be used for sending these notifications.
Anti-spam verification:
If you are a human please identify the position of the character covered by the symbol $\varnothing$ in the following word:
p$\hbar$ysicsOv$\varnothing$rflow
Then drag the red bullet below over the corresponding character of our banner. When you drop it there, the bullet changes to green (on slow internet connections after a few seconds).
Please complete the anti-spam verification




user contributions licensed under cc by-sa 3.0 with attribution required

Your rights
...