Related papers: The Rational Higher Structure of M-theory
The "brane scan" classifies consistent Green--Schwarz strings and membranes in terms of the invariant cocycles on super-Minkowski spacetimes. The "brane bouquet" generalizes this by consecutively forming the invariant higher central…
The key open problem of string theory remains its non-perturbative completion to M-theory. A decisive hint to its inner workings comes from numerous appearances of higher structures in the limits of M-theory that are already understood,…
We review the recent developments in superstrings. We start with a brief summary of various consistent superstring theories and discuss T-duality which necessarily leads to the presence of D-branes. The properties of D-branes are summarized…
A key open problem in M-theory is the mechanism of "gauge enhancement", which supposedly makes M-branes exhibit the nonabelian gauge degrees of freedom that are seen perturbatively in the limit of 10d string theory. In fact, since only the…
In the quest for mathematical foundations of M-theory, the "Hypothesis H" that fluxes are quantized in Cohomotopy theory, implies, on flat but possibly singular spacetimes, that M-brane charges locally organize into equivariant homotopy…
The thesis begins with an introduction to M-theory (at a graduate student's level), starting from perturbative string theory and proceeding to dualities, D-branes and finally Matrix theory. The following chapter treats, in a self-contained…
We formalize higher dimensional and higher gauge WZW-type sigma-model local prequantum field theory, and discuss its rationalized/perturbative description in (super-)Lie n-algebra homotopy theory (the true home of the "FDA"-language used in…
Heterotic string theory has nonsupersymmetric branes whose existence is suggested by the cobordism conjecture. We numerically construct static, spherically symmetric, and asymptotically flat black brane solutions in ten-dimensional…
A detailed review of recent developments in the topological classification of D-branes in superstring theory is presented. Beginning with a thorough, self-contained introduction to the techniques and applications of topological K-theory,…
BPS saturated p-branes play an important role in recent progress in understanding superstring theory and M theory. One approach to understanding the dynamics of p-branes is to formulate an effective (p+1)-dimensional world-volume theory.…
The lift of K-theoretic D-brane charge to M-theory was recently hypothesized to land in Cohomotopy cohomology theory. To further check this "Hypothesis H", here we explicitly compute the constraints on fractional D-brane charges at…
We describe how the super Minkowski space-times relevant to string theory and M-theory, complete with their Lorentz metrics and spin structures, emerge from a much more elementary object: the superpoint. In the sense of higher structures,…
In this informal review for non-specalists we discuss the construction of maximally supersymmetric gauge theories that arise on the worldvolumes branes in String Theory and M-Theory. Particular focus is made on the relatively recent…
A key open problem in M-theory is the identification of the degrees of freedom that are expected to be hidden at ADE-singularities in spacetime. Comparison with the classification of D-branes by K-theory suggests that the answer must come…
These lectures intend to give a pedagogical introduction into some of the developments in string theory during the last years. They include perturbative T-duality and non perturbative S- and U-dualities, their unavoidable demand for…
These lectures explore what can be learnt about M-theory from its superalgebra. The first three lectures introduce the 'basic' branes of M-theory, and type II superstring theories, and show how the duality relations between them are encoded…
These lectures begin by reviewing the evidence for S duality of the toroidally compactified heterotic string in 4d that was obtained in the period 1992--94. Next they review recently discovered dualities that relate all five of the 10d…
The past year has seen enormous progress in string theory. It has become clear that all of the different string theories are different limits of a single theory. Moreover, in certain limits, one obtains a new, eleven-dimensional structure…
The investigation of strings and M-theory involves the understanding of various BPS solitons which in a certain approximation can be thought of as solutions of ten- and eleven-dimensional supergravity theories. These solitons have a brane…
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…