Related papers: An Introduction to String Theory
This article provides some historical background and then reviews developments in string theory over the last twenty-five years or so. Both perturbative and non-perturbative approaches to string theory are surveyed and their impact on how…
We provide a non-technical introduction to "misaligned supersymmetry", a generic phenomenon in string theory which describes how the arrangement of bosonic and fermionic states at all string energy levels conspires to preserve finite string…
String Theory includes a plethora of higher-spin excitations, which clearly lie behind its most spectacular properties, but whose detailed behavior is largely unknown. Conversely, string interactions contain much useful information on…
An overview of some of the developments in string theory over the past two years is given, focusing on four topics: realistic (standard model like) models from string theory, geometric engineering and theories with fluxes, the gauge…
This document is an elementary introduction to string diagrams. It takes a computer science perspective: rather than using category theory as a starting point, we build on intuitions from formal language theory, treating string diagrams as…
The first part of this report gives a very quick sketch of how string theory concepts originated and evolved during its first 25 years (1968-93). The second part presents a somewhat more detailed discussion of the highlights of the past…
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 define string geometry: spaces of superstrings including the interactions, their topologies, charts, and metrics. Trajectories in asymptotic processes on a space of strings reproduce the right moduli space of the super Riemann surfaces…
The purpose of the present paper is the communication of some results and observations which shed new light on the algebraic structure of the algebra of string observables both in the classical and in the quantum theory.
The goal of these lectures is to present an informal but precise introduction to a body of concepts and methods of interest in number theory and string theory revolving around modular forms and their generalizations. Modular invariance lies…
This article is a concise review of covariant string field theory prepared for the Encyclopedia of Mathematical Physics, Elsevier (2006). Referencing follows the publisher's guidelines.
This is a contracted version of a series of lectures for graduate and undergraduate students given at the {\sl "VI Seminario Nazionale di Fisica Teorica"} (Parma, September 1997), at the Second Int. Conference {\sl "Around VIRGO"} (Pisa,…
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…
These lectures discuss some of the general issues in developing a phenomenology for Superstring Theory/M Theory. The focus is on the question: how might one obtain robust, generic predictions. For example, does the theory predict low energy…
A modified rigid string theory with infrared behaviour governed by a nontrivial fixed point is presented.
In an effort to promote communication between the formal and phenomenological branches of the high-energy theory community, we provide a description of some important issues in supersymmetric and string phenomenology. We describe each…
In these lectures we review the basic ideas of perturbative and non-perturbative string theory. On the non-perturbative side we give an introduction to D-branes and string duality. The elementary concepts of non-BPS branes and…
We consider two questions in string ``phenomenology.'' First, are there any generic string predictions? Second, are there any general lessons which string theory suggests for thinking about low energy models, particularly in the framework…
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 study the semiclassical spectrum of bosonic string theory on AdS_3 x S^1 in the limit of large AdS angular momentum. At leading semiclassical order, this is a subsector of the IIB superstring on AdS_5 x S^5. The theory includes strings…