Related papers: The Early Years of String Theory: A Personal Persp…
Cosmic strings are predicted by many field-theory models, and may have been formed at a symmetry-breaking transition early in the history of the universe, such as that associated with grand unification. They could have important…
This contribution, aimed mostly at experimental particle physicists, reviews some of the main ideas and results of String Theory in a non-technical language. It originates from the talks presented by the authors at the Electro-Weak session…
This is an introduction to some recent developments in string theory and M theory. We try to concentrate on the main physical aspects, and often leave more technical details to the original literature.
String Theory is the result of the conjunction of three conceptually independent elements: (i) the metaphysical idea of a nomological unity of the forces, (ii) the model-theoretical paradigm of Quantum Field Theory, and (iii) the conflict…
Recent years have seen noteworthy progress in the mathematical formulation of quantum field theory and perturbative string theory. We give a brief survey of these developments. It serves as an introduction to the more detailed collection…
It is shown that the string concept results naturally from considerations of gravitation. This paper describes a derivation of linearized general relativity based upon the hypotheses of special covariance and the existence of a…
Amidst all candidates of physics beyond the Standard Model, string theory provides a unique proposal for incorporating gauge and gravitational interactions. In string theory, a four-dimensional theory that unifies quantum mechanics and…
The interplay between string theory and cosmology is very promising. Since string theory will yield a quantum theory of space-time and unify all forces of nature, it has the potential of addressing many of the conceptual problems of the…
In this article, prepared for the book "The birth of string theory", I recall the sequence of ideas which led to non-critical strings and gauge/strings duality. I also comment on some promising future directions.
We provide a detailed analysis of the problems and prospects of superstring theory c. 1986, anticipating much of the progress of the decades to follow.
We explain the need for a theory of quantum gravity and some general ideas about string theory, including the idea of the derivation of the Hawking Bekenstein entropy formula for extremal black holes. We then give a general description of…
String cosmology aims at providing a reliable description of the very early Universe in the regime where standard-model physics is no longer appropriate, and where we can safely apply the basic ingredients of superstring models such as…
Cosmic strings are linear concentrations of energy that form whenever phase transitions in the early universe break axial symmetries as originally shown by Kibble. They are the result of frustrated order in the quantum fields responsible…
It is argued that string theory may pose new conceptual issues for the history and philosophy of science.
This is a completely reformulated presentation of a previous paper with the same title; this time with a much stronger emphasis on conceptual aspects of string theory and a detailed review of its already more than four decades lasting…
String Quantum Gravity is motivated and introduced. Advances in the study of the classical and quantum string dynamics in curved spacetime are reported: 1-New Classes of Exact Multistring solutions in curved spacetimes. 2-Mass spectrum of…
We discuss the continuum field theory limit of the physical scenario described in Ref. [1], the universe arising from the interpretation of the most general collection of logical codes in terms of distributions of units of energy along…
This book provides an introduction to string field theory (SFT). String theory is usually formulated in the worldsheet formalism, which describes a single string (first-quantization). While this approach is intuitive and could be pushed far…
In these lectures I review the progress made over the last few years in the subject of string and string-inspired phenomenology. I take a practical approach, thereby concentrating more on explicit examples rather than on formal…
The cosmic string theory for cosmological fluctuations is a good example of healthy scientific progress in cosmology. It is a well defined physically motivated model that has been tested by cosmological observations and has been ruled out…