Related papers: What if string theory has no de Sitter vacua?
Sine-square deformation, a recently found modulation of the coupling strength in certain statistical models, is discussed in the context of two-dimensional conformal field theories, with particular attention to open/closed string duality.…
Currently, string theory represents the only advanced approach to a unification of all interactions, including gravity. In spite of the more than thirty years of its existence it did not make any empirically testable predictions. And it is…
We give general arguments that any interacting non--conformal {\it classical} field theory in de Sitter space leads to the possibility of constructing a perpetuum mobile. The arguments are based on the observation that massive free falling…
I review the physical properties of different vacua in the background independent open string field theory. Talk presented at Strings 2001, Mumbai, India, http://theory.theory.tifr.res.in/strings/Proceedings/#sha-s.
There is evidence that string theory possesses a large discretuum of stable and/or metastable ground states, with zero or four supersymmetries in four dimensions. I discuss critically the nature of this evidence. Assuming this "landscape"…
Supercritical string theories in D>10 dimensions with no moduli are described, generalizing the asymmetric orientifold construction of one of the authors. By taking the number of dimensions to be large and turning on fluxes, dilaton…
String geometry theory is one of the candidates of the non-perturbative formulation of superstring theory. In this paper, in string geometry theory, we identify perturbative heterotic vacua, which include general heterotic backgrounds. From…
This is an introduction to some recent developments in string theory and M theory. We try to concentrate on the main physical aspects, and often leave more technical details to the original literature.
String geometry theory is one of the candidates of non-perturbative formulation of string theory. In this paper, we have shown that dimensionally reduced string geometry theories have what we call T-symmetry. In case of the dimensional…
In this talk I review recent developments in superstring theory. In the first half of the talk I discuss some of the earlier developments in this subject. This includes a review of the status of string theory as a unified theory of gravity…
We find ourselves in an extended era of entropy production. Unlike most other observations, the arrow of time is usually regarded as a constraint on initial conditions. I argue, however, that it primarily constrains the vacuum structure of…
In these lectures we give a brief introduction to perturbative and non-perturbative string theory. The outline is the following: 1. Introduction to perturbative string theory 1.1 From point particle to extended objects 1.2 Free closed and…
A new class of metastable de Sitter vacua is presented and analyzed in N =1 supergravity and string theory with tunable (infinitesimally small) value of the cosmological constant. They are based on a gauged R-symmetry and the minimal…
We argue that the study of the statistics of the landscape of string vacua provides the first potentially predictive -- and also falsifiable -- framework for string theory. The question of whether the theory does or does not predict low…
There have been many remarkable developments in our understanding of superstring theory in the past few years, a period that has been described as ``the second superstring revolution.'' Several of them are discussed here. The presentation…
We review the current knowledge about the theoretical foundations of the effective string theory for confining flux tubes and the comparison of the predictions to pure gauge lattice data. A concise presentation of the effective string…
In a recent paper [1] we showed that N=1 supersymmetric QCD in the presence of certain superpotential deformations has a rich landscape of supersymmetric and non-supersymmetric vacua. In this paper we embed this theory in string theory as a…
String theory has few or no stable nonsupersymmetric or de Sitter vacua, only metastable ones. Antibranes are a simple source of supersymmetry breaking, as in the KKLT model, but various arguments have been given that these fail to produce…
We construct a large new class of de Sitter (and anti de Sitter) vacua of critical string theory from flux compactifications on products of Riemann surfaces. In the construction, the leading effects stabilizing the moduli are perturbative.…
This is the written version of a short talk given at the University of Leipzig in December 1998. It reviews some general aspects of string theory from the viewpoint of the search for an unifying theory. Here, special emphasis lies on the…