On the strongly coupled heterotic string

We analyze in detail the anomaly cancellation conditions for the strongly coupled E-8 x E-8 heterotic string introduced by Horava and Witten and find new features compared to the ten-dimensional Green-Schwarz mechanism. We project onto ten dimensions the corresponding Lagrangian of the zero-mode fields. We find that it has a simple interpretation provided by the conjectured heterotic string/fivebrane duality. The part which originates from eleven-dimensions is naturally described in fivebrane language. We discuss physical couplings and scales in four dimensions. (C) 1997 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.