The exact quartic effective action for the type IIB superstring

We propose a four-point effective action for the graviton, antisymmetric two-forms, dilaton and axion of type IIB superstring in ten dimensions. It is explicitly SL(2,Z)-invariant and reproduces the known tree-level results. Perturbatively, it has only one-loop corrections generalizing the non-renormalization theorem of the R4 term. Finally, the non-perturbative corrections are of the expected form, namely, they can be interpreted as arising from single D-instantons of multiple charge.