Reciprocal non-relativistic decoupling limits of String Theory and M-Theory

A bstract It has recently been realised that there are supersymmetry-preserving non-relativistic decoupling limits associated with each half-BPS object in String Theory and M-Theory. We argue that, given a p -brane and a q -brane for which there is a quarter-BPS intersecting configuration, the p -brane decoupling limit of the q -brane’s worldvolume QFT is necessarily equal to the reciprocal q -brane decoupling limit of the p -brane’s worldvolume theory. This is explicitly shown for the cases of the D0-D4 and D1-D3 systems. As an application of this idea, we use the reciprocal pair of limits in the M2-M5 system to describe the dynamics of interacting self-dual strings in the six-dimensional $$ \mathcal{N} $$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:mi>N</mml:mi> </mml:math> = (2, 0) theory. We also discuss the limits of the dual gravitational theories and, using symmetries, argue that the duality is maintained by the limits.