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The confrontation between Einstein's gravitation theory and experimental results, notably binary pulsar data, is summarized and its significance discussed. Experiment and theory agree at the 10^{-3} level or better. All the basic structures…
Formulating a quantum theory of gravity lies at the heart of fundamental theoretical physics. This collection of lecture notes encompasses a selection of topics that were covered in six mini-courses at the Nordita PhD school "Towards…
At the present time, string theory (and its generalizations) remain relatively abstruse subjects to the particle phenomenologist and experimentalist. Yet, striking developments of the last two years offer hope that a fundamental…
We start by briefly reviewing the description of gravity theories as gauge theories in four dimensions. More specifically we recall the procedure leading to the results of General Relativity and Weyl Gravity in a gauge-theoretic manner.…
In this article I first give an abbreviated history of string theory and then describe the recently-conjectured field-string duality. This suggests a class of nonsupersymmetric gauge theories which are conformal (CGT) to leading order of…
Quantum theory and general relativity are about one century old. At present, they are considered the best available explanations of physical reality, and they have been so far corroborated by all experiments realised so far. Nonetheless,…
In the covariant-gauge two-dimensional quantum gravity, various derivations of the critical dimension D=26 of the bosonic string are critically reviewed, and their interrelations are clarified. It is shown that the string theory is not…
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…
The Weak Gravity Conjecture holds that in a theory of quantum gravity, any gauge force must mediate interactions stronger than gravity for some particles. This statement has surprisingly deep and extensive connections to many different…
Among the available quantum gravity proposals, string theory, loop quantum gravity, non-commutative geometry, group field theory, causal sets, asymptotic safety, causal dynamical triangulation, emergent gravity are among the best motivated…
Some relationships between string theories and eleven-dimensional supergravity are discussed and reviewed. We see how some relationships can be derived from others. The cases of N=2 supersymmetry in nine dimensions and N=4 supersymmetry in…
This essay presents a critical evaluation of the concepts of string theory and its impact on particle physics. The point of departure is a historical review of four decades of string theory within the broader context of six decades of…
The history of general relativity suggests that in absence of experimental data, constructing a theory on philosophical first principles can lead to a very useful theory as well as to ground-breaking insights about physical reality. The two…
In this semi-technical review we discuss string theory (and all that goes by that name) as a framework for a quantum theory of gravity. This is a new paradigm in theoretical physics that goes beyond relativistic quantum field theory. We…
A string field theory including open string fields is constructed in the temporal gauge. It consists of string interaction vertices similar to the light-cone gauge string field theory. A slight modification of the definition of the time…
The study of AdS/CFT (or gauge/gravity) duality has been one of the most active and illuminating areas of research in string theory over the past decade. The scope of its relevance and the insights it is providing seem to be ever expanding.…
Using the renormalization-group formalism, a sigma model of a special type- in which the metric and the dilaton depend explicitly on one of the string coordinates only-is investigated near two dimensions. It is seen that dilatonic gravity…
A few recollections and afterthoughts on the development of the string picture of fundamental interactions out of the S-matrix program.
In this review we describe a non-trivial relationship between perturbative gauge theory and gravity scattering amplitudes. At the semi-classical or tree level, the scattering amplitudes of gravity theories in flat space can be expressed as…
Nottale's special scale-relativity principle was proposed earlier by the author as a plausible geometrical origin to string theory and extended objects. Scale Relativity is to scales what motion Relativity is to velocities. The universal,…