CHIRAL GAUGE-THEORIES FROM D-BRANES

We construct brane configurations leading to chiral four dimensional N =1 supersymmetric gauge theories. The brane realizations consist of in tersecting Neveu-Schwarz five-branes and Dirichlet four-branes in non- flat spacetime backgrounds. We discuss in some detail the construction in a C-2/Z(M) orbifold background. The infrared theory on the four-br ane worldvolume is a four dimensional N=1 SU(N)(M) gauge theory with c hiral matter representations. We discuss various consistency checks an d show that the spectral curves describing the Coulomb phase of the th eory can be obtained once the orbifold brane construction is embedded in M-theory. We also discuss the addition of extra vectorlike matter a nd other interesting generalizations. (C) 1998 Published by Elsevier S cience B.V.