Related papers: Stringy differential geometry, beyond Riemann
We present the general theory of relativity in the language of a non-Riemannian geometry, namely, Weyl geometry. We show that the new mathematical formalism may lead to different pictures of the same gravitational phenomena, by making use…
In these introductory notes I explain some basic ideas in string field theory. These include: the concept of a string field, the issue of background independence, the reason why minimal area metrics solve the problem of generating all…
We conjecture that $W$ gravity can be interpreted as the gauge theory of $\phi$ diffeomorphisms in the space of dimensionally-reduced $D=2+2$ $SU^*(\infty)$ Yang-Mills instantons. These $\phi$ diffeomorphisms preserve a volume-three form…
We consider special geometry of the vector multiplet moduli space in compactifications of the heterotic string on $K3 \times T^2$ or the type IIA string on $K3$-fibered Calabi-Yau threefolds. In particular, we construct a modified dilaton…
In the present article, we study the space-time geometry felt by probe bosonic string moving in antisymmetric and dilaton background fields. This space-time geometry we shall call the stringy geometry. In particular, the presence of the…
We study classical dynamics of cylindrical membranes wrapped around the extra compact dimension of a $(D+1)$-dimensional Riemann-Cartan spacetime. The world-sheet equations and boundary conditions are obtained from the universally valid…
Using the recent advances in our understanding of non-perturbative aspects of type II strings we show how non-trivial exact results for $N=2$ quantum field theories can be reduced to T-dualities of string theory. This is done by…
We review the recently constructed `double field theory' which introduces in addition to the conventional coordinates associated to momentum modes coordinates associated to winding modes. Thereby, T-duality becomes a global symmetry of the…
String theory has already motivated, suggested, and sometimes well-nigh proved a number of interesting and sometimes unexpected mathematical results, such as mirror symmetry. A careful examination of the behavior of string propagation on…
The complete quantum theory of closed superstrings is constructed using string diagrams endowed with metric having constant curvature $-1$. The elementary string diagrams are equipped with the analytic local coordinates induced from the…
Explicit breaking of diffeomorphism symmetry with nondynamical background fields in gravitational theories can lead to inconsistencies between the equations of motion and the underlying pseudo-Riemannian geometry. These theories produce a…
We report a new internal gauge symmetry of the n-dimensional Palatini action with cosmological term (n>3) that is the generalization of three-dimensional local translations. This symmetry is obtained through the direct application of the…
After a brief review of topological gravity, we present a superspace approach to this theory. This formulation allows us to recover in a natural manner various known results and to gain some insight into the precise relationship between…
We study the underlying gauge symmetry algebra of the $N=2$ string, which is broken down to a subalgebra in any spacetime background. For given toroidal backgrounds, the unbroken gauge symmetries (corresponding to holomorphic and…
The fundamental string length, which is an essential part of string theory, explicitly breaks scale invariance. However, in field theory we demonstrated recently that the gravitational constant, which is directly related to the string…
In string theory the coupling ``constants'' appearing in the low-energy effective Lagrangian are determined by the vacuum expectation values of some (a priori) massless scalar fields (dilaton, moduli). This naturally leads one to expect a…
We show that it is possible to formulate gravity with a complex vierbein based on SL(2,C) gauge invariance. The proposed action is a four-form where the metric is not introduced but results as a function of the complex vierbein. This…
We show that, in the framework of Deformed Special Relativity (DSR), namely a (four-dimensional) generalization of the (local) space-time struc- ture based on an energy-dependent "deformation" of the usual Minkowski geometry, two kinds of…
We investigate the dynamics of an arbitrary Dirichlet (D-) string in presence of general curved backgrounds following a path-integral formalism. In particular, we consider the interaction of D-string with the massless excitations of closed…
We relate the Teichmuller spaces obtained by Hitchin to the Teichmuller spaces of $WA_{n}$-gravity. The relationship of this space to $W$-gravity is obtained by identifying the flat $PSL(n+1,{\BR})$ connections of Hitchin to generalised…