Related papers: From Quarks to Strings
We review some recent results on phenomenological approaches to strong interactions inspired in gauge/string duality. In particular, we discuss how such models lead to very good estimates for hadronic masses.
String theory is accused by some of its critics to be a purely abstract mathematical discipline, having lost the contact to the simple yet deeply rooted questions which physics provided until the beginning of this century. We argue that, in…
We describe some of the novel 6d quantum field theories which have been discovered in studies of string duality. The role these theories (and their 4d descendants) may play in alleviating the vacuum degeneracy problem in string theory is…
String theories should reduce to ordinary four-dimensional field theories at low energies. Yet the formulation of the two are so different that such a connection, if it exists, is not immediately obvious. With the Schwinger proper-time…
Currently, string theory represents the only advanced approach to a unification of all interactions, including gravity. In spite of the more than thirty years of its existence it did not make any empirically testable predictions. And it is…
These notes are devoted to the intriguing and still largely unexplored links between String Theory and Higher Spins, the types of excitations that lie behind its most cherished properties. A closer look at higher-spin fields provides some…
Making use of the gauge/string duality, it is possible to study some aspects of the string breaking phenomenon in the three quark system. Our results point out that the string breaking distance is not universal and depends on quark…
This is a brief overview on the current status of string theory for non-specialists. The purpose is to give an aspect on the nature of string theory as a unified theory of all interactions including quantum gravity and to discuss future…
String theory is the most promising candidate theory for a unified description of all fundamental forces exist in the nature. It provides a mathematical framework that combine quantum theory with Einstein's general theory of relativity. But…
It is argued that string theory may pose new conceptual issues for the history and philosophy of science.
In these notes, based on a talk given at the Rencontres de Moriond, I give a simple introduction to the tremendous progress that has been made during the last few years towards the understanding of strong-coupling phenomena in quantum gauge…
The aim of these lectures is to give an introduction to several topics which lie at the intersection of string theory, gravity theory and gravity phenomenology. One successively reviews: (i) the "membrane" approach to the dissipative…
I describe our understanding of physics near the planck length, in particular the great progress of the last four years in string theory. Superstring theory, and a recent extension called M theory, are leading candidates for a quantum…
String theory appears to admit a group of discrete field transformations -- called $S$ dualities -- as exact non-perturbative quantum symmetries. Mathematically, they are rather analogous to the better-known $T$ duality symmetries, which…
Much of modern string theory research concerns AdS/CFT duality, or more generally, gauge/gravity duality. The main subjects are a) Testing and understanding such dualities by exploring how they work for systems with a lot of supersymmetry…
In the presence of a static quark--antiquark pair, the spectrum of the low-lying states in SU($N$) gauge theories is discrete and likely to be described, at large quark separations $r$, by an effective string theory. The expansion of the…
We discuss different formulations and approaches to string theory and $ 2d$ quantum gravity. The generic idea to get a unique description of {\it many} different string vacua altogether is demonstrated on the examples in $ 2d$ conformal,…
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.
In this talk we discuss the need to introduce a string theory in order to obtain a consistent quantum theory of gravity unified with gauge interactions. We then discuss some basic properties of string theory and the origin and the…
These notes discuss the emergence of the Polyakov action from the low-energy limit of an array of relativistic particles with harmonic interactions, which is suggestive of a ``microscopic'' description of string theory.