Related papers: Low Tension Strings on a Cosmological Singularity
Arguably the simplest model of a cosmological singularity in string theory, the Lorentzian orbifold $\Real^{1,1}/boost$ is known to lead to severe divergences in scattering amplitudes of untwisted states, indicating a large backreaction…
Resolution of cosmological singularities is an important problem in any full theory of quantum gravity. The Milne orbifold is a cosmology with a big-bang/big-crunch singularity, but being a quotient of flat space it holds potential for…
We study the null orbifold singularity in 2+1 d flat space higher spin theory as well as string theory. Using the Chern-Simons formulation of 2+1 d Einstein gravity, we first observe that despite the singular nature of this geometry, the…
We compute string scattering amplitudes in an orbifold of Minkowski space by a boost, and show how certain divergences in the four point function are associated with graviton exchange near the singularity. These divergences reflect large…
We consider string theory in a time dependent orbifold with a null singularity. The singularity separates a contracting universe from an expanding universe, thus constituting a big crunch followed by a big bang. We quantize the theory both…
Superstring theory is known to be free from ultraviolet divergences but suffers from the usual infrared divergences that occur in quantum field theories. After briefly reviewing the origin of ultraviolet finiteness of superstring theory we…
We confirm the intuition that a string theory which is perturbatively infrared finite is automatically perturbatively ultraviolet finite. Our derivation based on the asymptotics of the Selberg trace formula for the Greens function on a…
Recently, Witten proposed a topological string theory in twistor space that is dual to a weakly coupled gauge theory. In this lectures we will discuss aspects of the twistor string theory. Along the way we will learn new things about…
Scattering amplitudes for discrete states in 2D string theory are considered. Pole divergences of tree-level amplitudes are extracted and residues are interpreted as renormalized amplitudes for discrete states. An effective Lagrangian…
We demonstrate how duality invariance of the low energy expansion of the four-graviton amplitude in type II string theory determines the precise coefficients of multiloop logarithmic ultraviolet divergences of maximal supergravity in…
We consider, in a string theory framework, physical processes of phenomenological interest in models with a low string scale. The amplitudes we study involve tree-level virtual gravitational exchange, divergent in a field-theoretical…
We consider massless string scattering amplitudes in a limit where the number of external particles becomes very large, while the energy of each particle remains small. Using the growth of the volume of the relevant moduli space, and by…
The scattering amplitudes of string theory exhibit many extraordinary properties. But are they the unique mathematical objects to do so? Recently, it has been shown how the spectrum and amplitudes of open string theory follow directly from…
At low energies, interactions of massless particles in type II strings compactified on a torus $T^d$ are described by an effective Wilsonian action $\mathcal{S}(\Lambda)$, consisting of the usual supergravity Lagrangian supplemented by an…
It has been known for about thirty years that a scattering amplitude involving D0-branes and closed strings suffers from infrared divergences beyond tree level. These divergences arise because the conventional world-sheet approach cannot…
We continue and extend our earlier investigation ``Strings in a Time-Dependent Orbifold'' (hep-th/0204168). We formulate conditions for an orbifold to be amenable to perturbative string analysis and classify the low dimensional orbifolds…
String theory provides a compact integral expression for the tree-level scattering amplitude of an arbitrary number of light strings. We focus on amplitudes involving a few tachyons and many photons, with a special choice of polarizations…
A very review of string scattering amplitudes in two important high energy limits: hard scattering and Regge scattering. Recent results of the symmetries in string theory by studying high energy string scattering anplitudes are showed.
Scattering amplitudes computed by superstring perturbation theory are known to holomorphically split into chiral half integrands at fixed internal loop momentum. It is established by direct computation that upon reduction to the ordinary…
Four-particle tree-level scattering amplitudes in string theory are magically consistent with unitarity, reflected in the non-trivial fact that beneath the critical dimension, the residues of the amplitudes on massive poles can be expanded…