Related papers: An Introduction to String Theory
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String theory builds on the great legacy of Yukawa and Tomonaga: New degrees of freedom and control of the UV are two important themes. This talk will give an overview of some of the progress and some of the unsolved problems that…
One cannot yet point to any firm string prediction. While many approximate string ground states are known with interesting properties, we do not have any argument that one or another describes what we observe around us, and for reasons…
I discuss cosmological models either derived from, or inspired by, string theory or M-theory. In particular I discuss solutions in the low-energy effective theory and the role of the dilaton, moduli and antisymmetric form fields in the…
With our current level of understanding, the problem of making string theory predictions is not one of "solving" the theory, but rather of trying to determine whether there are any generic expectations. Within this context, we discuss what…
String theory is at the moment the only advanced approach to a unification of all interactions, including gravity. But, in spite of the more than thirty years of its existence, it does not make any empirically testable predictions, and it…
We review some exact solitonic solutions of string theory with higher-membrane structure. These include an axionic instanton solution of bosonic string theory as well as multi-instanton and multimonopole solutions of heterotic string…
This thesis is almost entirely devoted to studying string theory backgrounds characterized by simple geometrical and integrability properties. The archetype of this type of system is given by Wess-Zumino-Witten models, describing string…
We argue that string theory should have a formulation for which stability and causality are evident. Rather than regard strings as fundamental objects, we suggest they should be regarded as composite systems of more fundamental point-like…
We give a brief history of the passage from strings to branes and we review some aspects of the following topics in M-theory: (a) an extended brane scan, (b) superembedding approach to the dynamics of superbranes and (c) supermembranes in…
A synthetic report of the advances in the study of classical and quantum string dynamics in curved backgrounds is provided, namely: the new feature of multistring solutions; the effect of a cosmological constant and of spacial curvature on…
String theory is the leading candidate for a unified theory of the standard model and gravity. In the last few years theorists have realized that there is a unique structure underlying string theory. In this unification a prominent role is…
Basics of some topics on perturbative and non-perturbative string theory are reviewed. After a mathematical survey of the Standard Model of particle physics and GUTs, the bosonic string kinematics for the free case and with interaction is…
String theory in two-dimensional spacetime illuminates two main threads of recent development in string theory: (1) Open/closed string duality, and (2) Tachyon condensation. In two dimensions, many aspects of these phenomena can be explored…
In this note we reformulate topological string theory using supermanifolds and supermoduli spaces, following the approach worked out by Witten for superstring perturbation theory in arXiv:1209.5461. We intend to make the construction…
String theory, as a theory containing quantum gravity, is usually thought to require more dimensions of spacetime than the usual 3+1. Here I argue on physical grounds that needing extra dimensions for strings may well be an artefact of…
String theory one-loop threshold corrections are studied in a background field approach due to Kiritsis and Kounnas which uses space-time curvature as an infrared regulator. We review the conformal field theory aspects using the…
We discuss superstring theory based on the reader's intuition and her college knowledge of general physics and calculus. Nowadays, superstring theory is considered the best candidate to explain physical phenomena that involve all of the…
Three subjects are considered here: a self-dual non-critical string that appears in Type IIB superstring theory at points in ${\rm K3}$ moduli space where the Type IIA theory has extended gauge symmetry; a conformal field theory singularity…
These lectures provide an introduction to perturbative string theory and its construction on spaces with background Ramond flux. Traditional covariant quantization of the string and its connection with vertex operators and conformal…