M-THEORY FIVEBRANE INTERPRETATION FOR STRONG-COUPLING DYNAMICS OF SO(N-C) GAUGE-THEORIES

We study M theory fivebranes to understand the moduli space of vacua o f N = 1 supersymmetric SO(N-c) gauge theory with Nf flavors in four di mensions. We discuss how the various branches of this theory arise in the string/M theory brane configurations and compare our results with the ones obtained earlier by Intriligator and Seiberg in the context o f field theory. In the M theory approach, we explain the various branc hes from the asymptotic position of semi-infinite D4 branes in the w = x(8) + ix(9) direction, which is closely related to the eigenvalues o f the meson matrix M-ij = Q(a)(i)Q(a)(i) where Q(a)(i) is a squark mul tiplet(i = 1,...,2N(f) and a = 1,...,N-c). In M theory, these branches are explained by observing a new phenomena which did not occur for th e gauge groups SU(N-c) or Sp(N-c). (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.