Related papers: Breaking symmetry, breaking ground
Comment on P. Walker, Nature 453 (2008) 864, http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v453/n7197/full/453864a.html
The first part of this thesis is a general introduction to the bosonic and fermionic string theory, to the concept of D brane and to string dualities. A discussion of anomalies cancellation closes the chapter. The second part of the thesis…
I give an epistemological analysis of the developments of relativistic cosmology from 1917 to 1966, based on the seminal articles by Einstein, de Sitter, Friedmann, Lemaitre, Hubble, Gamow and other historical figures of the field. It…
A pedagogical introduction to aspects of string cosmology, including the landscape (BPBT) solution to the cosmological constant problem, brane-antibrane inflation, warped compactification, the KKLMMT model, the eta problem of SUGRA models,…
I review three attempts to explain the small value of the cosmological constant, and their connection to SUSY breaking. They are The String Landscape, Supersymmetric Large Extra Dimensions (SLED), and the Holographic Space-time Formalism…
This is a short account, based on a talk given at the 2024 Moriond Cosmology Conference, of where and why string theory matters in early universe cosmology. It is written for a cosmology audience predisposed to be at best sceptical, and at…
These are notes of a series of lectures on mirror symmetry and topological string theory given at the Mathematical Sciences Center at Tsinghua University. The N=2 superconformal algebra, its deformations and its chiral ring are reviewed. A…
Final published version.
In this talk I first briefly review how far we have come in answering old questions about the most fundamental building blocks of matter. I begin with things we know, which is the Standard Model, and then talk about things we can guess,…
What is the shape of the Universe? Is it finite or infinite ? Is space multi-connected to create ghost images of faraway cosmic sources? After a "dark age" period, the field of cosmic topology has now become one of the major concerns in…
In these lectures, I review the current status of cosmic strings and cosmic superstrings. I first discuss topological defects in the context of Grand Unified Theories, focusing in particular in cosmic strings arising as gauge theory…
Cosmic strings were postulated by Kibble in 1976 and, from a theoretical point of view, their existence finds support in modern superstring theories, both in compactification models and in theories with extended additional dimensions. Their…
It has been pointed out that cosmic string solutions can exist in gauge field theories with broken symmetry even when $\pi _1(G/H)$ is trivial. The stability of such semilocal defects is not guaranteed by topology and depends on dynamical…
Cosmic strings are linear concentrations of energy that may be formed at phase transitions in the very early universe. At one time they were thought to provide a possible origin for the density inhomogeneities from which galaxies eventually…
String cosmology aims at providing a reliable description of the very early Universe in the regime where standard-model physics is no longer appropriate, and where we can safely apply the basic ingredients of superstring models such as…
This is mainly a brief review of some key achievements in a `hot'' area of theoretical and mathematical physics. The principal aim is to outline the basic structures underlying {\em integrable} quantum field theory models with {\em…
Whether we live in a spatially finite universe, and what its shape and size may be, are among the fundamental long-standing questions in cosmology. These questions of topological nature have become particularly topical, given the wealth of…
I reply to a Comment by Q. Wang and W.G. Unruh regarding my paper "Hiding the Cosmological Constant" [Phys. Rev. Lett. 123, 131302].
We investigate the string configuration that, in the framework of the theoretical scenario introduced in [1], corresponds to the most entropic configuration in the phase space of all the configurations of the universe. This describes a…
We give an introduction to the physics and mathematics involved in the recently observed relation between topological string theory and knot contact homology and then discuss this relation. The note is based on two lectures given at the…