Related papers: Supergravity at 40: Reflections and Perspectives
The suggestion in 1986 of a possible gravity-like ``fifth" fundamental force renewed interest in the question of whether new macroscopic forces are present in nature. Such forces are predicted in many theories which unify gravity with the…
`How do our ideas about quantum mechanics affect our understanding of spacetime?' This familiar question leads to quantum gravity. The complementary question is also important: `How do our ideas about spacetime affect our understanding of…
Since the early days of search for a quantum theory of gravity the attempts have been mostly concentrated on the quantization of an otherwise classical system. The two most contentious candidate theories of gravity, sting theory and quantum…
Quantum gravity--the marriage of quantum physics with general relativity--is bound to contain deep and important lessons for the nature of physical time. Some of these lessons shall be canvassed here, particularly as they arise from quantum…
This is a pedagogical introduction to the treatment of general relativity as a quantum effective field theory. Gravity fits nicely into the effective field theory description and forms a good quantum theory at ordinary energies.
The goal of this article is to present a broad perspective on quantum gravity for \emph{non-experts}. After a historical introduction, key physical problems of quantum gravity are illustrated. While there are a number of interesting and…
A growing number of studies is being devoted to the identification of plausible quantum properties of spacetime which might give rise to observably large effects. The literature on this subject is now relatively large, including studies in…
We review the remarkable interplay between modular symmetries and supergravity, which has led to major advances in both physics and mathematics in recent decades. Our focus will be on four-dimensional models with $\mathcal{N}=1$ and…
This year, 2010, is the 40th anniversary of Physical Review C as a separate section of the Physical Review. We write here with a double purpose: first, to describe how PRC has evolved and to explore how this evolution has reflected changes…
In this report I wish to recall how the basic concepts and ingredients of supergravity were formulated by Dmitrij V. Volkov and the present author in 1973-74 under the first investigation of the super-Higgs effect .
The search for a new scientific theory is typically prompted by an encounter with something in the world that cannot be explained by current theories. This is not the case for the search for a theory of quantum gravity, which has been…
The search for a consistent and empirically established quantum theory of gravity is among the biggest open problems of fundamental physics. The obstacles are of formal and of conceptual nature. Here, I address the main conceptual problems,…
I briefly review the current status of quantum gravity. After giving some general motivations for the need of such a theory, I discuss the main approaches in quantizing general relativity: Covariant approaches (perturbation 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…
Synthesizing older ideas about the 1/N expansion in gauge theory, the quantum mechanics of black holes, and quantum field theory in Anti de Sitter space, a new correspondence between gauge theory and quantum gravity has illuminated both…
We briefly review ideas about ``noncommutativity of space-time'' and approaches toward a corresponding theory of gravity.
I discuss the early developments of string theory with respect to its connection with gauge theory and general relativity from my own perspective. The period covered is mainly from 1969 to 1974, during which I became involved in research on…
Here I indulge in wide-ranging speculations on the shape of physics, and technology closely related to physics, over the next one hundred years. Themes include the many faces of unification, the re-imagining of quantum theory, and new forms…
As we mark the centenary of Albert Einstein's seminal contribution to both quantum mechanics and special relativity, we approach another anniversary--that of Einstein's foundation of the quantum theory of solids. But 100 years on, the same…
The era of high precision Cosmology has shown our ignorance about the composition of the Universe. In this context, there has been a renewed interest on Alternative Theories of Gravity. Through the experience of a graviton measured by the…