English

Truly Strong Coupling and Large Radius in String Theory

High Energy Physics - Theory 2009-10-30 v3

Abstract

String theory, if it describes nature, is probably strongly coupled. In light of recent developments in string duality, this means that the ``real world'' should correspond to a region of the classical moduli space which admits no weak coupling description. We exhibit, in the heterotic string, one such region of the moduli space, in which the coupling, λ\lambda, is large and the ``compactification radius'' scales as λ1/3\lambda^{1/3}. We discuss some of the issues raised by the conjecture that the true vacuum lies in such a region. These include the question of coupling constant unification, and more generally the problem of what quantities one might hope to calculate and compare with experiment in such a picture.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.hep-th/9601175,
  title  = {Truly Strong Coupling and Large Radius in String Theory},
  author = {Michael Dine and Yuri Shirman},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:hep-th/9601175},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

10 pages, no figures. Typos corrected