English

Cosmological unification of string theories

High Energy Physics - Theory 2008-11-26 v3

Abstract

We present an exact solution of superstring theory that interpolates in time between an initial type 0 phase and a final phase whose physics is exactly that of the bosonic string. The initial theory is deformed by closed-string tachyon condensation along a lightlike direction. In the limit of large tachyon vev, the worldsheet conformal field theory precisely realizes the Berkovits-Vafa embedding of bosonic string theory into superstring theory. Our solution therefore connects the bosonic string dynamically with the superstring, settling a longstanding question about the relationship between the two theories.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.hep-th/0612116,
  title  = {Cosmological unification of string theories},
  author = {Simeon Hellerman and Ian Swanson},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:hep-th/0612116},
  year   = {2008}
}

Comments

v2: references added, typos fixed; v3: new sections added; 62 pages, 5 figures