Related papers: From Quarks to Strings
The past year has seen enormous progress in string theory. It has become clear that all of the different string theories are different limits of a single theory. Moreover, in certain limits, one obtains a new, eleven-dimensional structure…
This work is devoted to a study of some of the non-perturbative aspects of superstring theory that have come within reach thanks to dualities. The first chapter gives a non-technical zero-equation introduction to these developments intended…
A review is given of recent research on two-dimensional gauge theories, with particular emphasis on the equivalence between these theories and certain string theories with a two-dimensional target space. Some related open problems are…
A duality relationship between certain brane configurations in type IIA and type IIB string theory is explored by exploiting the geometrical origins of each theory in M-theory. The configurations are dual ways of realising the…
We analyze how string theory dualities may be described in M theory. T dualities arise from scalar-vector dualities in the worldvolume of the membrane of M theory. ``Electric-magnetic'' dualities arise from a duality transformation in M…
In these lecture notes, an introduction to superstring theory is presented. Classical strings, covariant and light-cone quantization, supersymmetric strings, anomaly cancelation, compactification, T-duality, supersymmetry breaking, and…
A brief review of aspects of gravity gauge theory correspondance inspired by string theory is presented.
The strong coupling limit of a quantum system is in general quite complicated, but in some cases a great simplification occurs: the strongly coupled limit is equivalent to the weakly coupled limit of some other system. In string theory…
This Ph.D. thesis collects results obtained investigating two different aspects of modern unifying theories. In the first part I summarized results achieved investigating simplicial aspects of string dualities. Exploiting Boundary Conformal…
The dominance of string theory in the research landscape of quantum gravity physics (despite any direct experimental evidence) can, I think, be justified in a variety of ways. Here I focus on an argument from mathematical fertility, broadly…
String theory has not even come close to a complete formulation after half a century of intense research. On the other hand, a number of features of the theory suggest that the theory, once completed, may be a final theory. It is argued in…
A polemical article evaluating string theory from the point of view of a quantum field theorist working in a mathematics department. Comments to the author are encouraged.
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…
New non-perturbative interactions in the effective action of two dimensional string theory are described. These interactions are due to ``stringy" instantons
String and field theory ideas have greatly influenced each other since the so called second string revolution. We review this interrelation paying particular attention to its phenomenological implications. Our guiding principle is the…
We present an overview of the intimate relationship between string and D-brane dynamics, and the dynamics of gauge and gravitational fields in three spacetime dimensions. The successes, prospects and open problems in describing both…
This is a set of lectures on the gauge/string duality and non-critical strings, with a particular emphasis on the discretized, or matrix model, approach. After a general discussion of various points of view, I describe the recent…
We propose a duality between the large-N gauged harmonic oscillator and a novel string theory in two dimensions.
The string duality revolution calls into question virtually all of the working assumptions of string model builders. A number of difficult questions arise. I use fractional charge as an example of a criterion which one would hope is robust…
Thermodynamical aspects of string theory are reviewed and discussed.