Related papers: David Olive: his life and work
The origin of the graviton from string theory is well understood: it corresponds to a massless state in closed string spectra, whose low-energy effective action, as extracted from string scattering amplitudes, is that of Einstein-Hilbert.…
The aim of these lectures is to give an introduction to several topics which lie at the intersection of string theory, gravity theory and gravity phenomenology. One successively reviews: (i) the "membrane" approach to the dissipative…
The gauge symmetries that underlie string theory arise from inner automorphisms of the algebra of observables of the associated conformal field theory. In this way it is possible to study broken and unbroken symmetries on the same footing,…
Talk given at the 26th Workshop: ``From Superstrings to Supergravity" Erice - Sicily, 5-12 December 1992: In this talk we discuss string consistency requirements on four dimensional string models, namely the cancellation of target space…
This article contains a summary of the author's contributions, one in collaboration with K. Bardakci, to dual models and string theory prior to the mid-seventies. Other workers' contributions, during and subsequent to this period, are…
The duality map between gauge theories and strings suggests that when the gauge theory is in the weak coupling regime the dual string tension effectively tends to zero, $\alpha' \to \infty$. This observation of Sundborg and Witten initiates…
The best candidate for a fundamental unified theory of all physical phenomena is no longer ten-dimensional superstring theory but rather eleven-dimensional {\it M-theory}. In the words of Fields medalist Edward Witten, ``M stands for…
Superstring theory is one current, promising attempt at unifying gravity with the other three known forces: the electromagnetic force, and the weak and strong nuclear forces. Though this is still a work in progress, much effort has been put…
Double field theory is an approach for massless modes of string theory, unifying and geometrizing all gauge invariance in manifest $\mathbf{O}(D,D)$ covariant manner. In this approach, we derive off-shell conserved Noether current and…
Freeman J. Dyson, a brilliant theoretical physicist and a gifted mathematician, passed away on 28 February 2020 at the age of 96. A vignette of his outstanding contributions to physical sciences, ranging from the subject of quantum…
The string duality revolution calls into question virtually all of the working assumptions of string model builders. A number of difficult questions arise. I use fractional charge as an example of a criterion which one would hope is robust…
Twistor string models have been known for more than a decade now but have come back under the spotlight recently with the advent of the scattering equation formalism which has greatly generalized the scope of these models. A striking…
By integrating out the heavy fields in type II or heterotic string field theory one can construct the effective action for the light fields. This effective theory inherits all the algebraic structures of the parent theory and the effective…
Extensions (modifications) of the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle are derived within the framework of the theory of Special Scale-Relativity proposed by Nottale. In particular, generalizations of the Stringy Uncertainty Principle are…
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,…
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…
We develop an operator formalism for investigating the properties of nonabelian cosmic strings (and vortices) in quantum field theory. Operators are constructed that introduce classical string sources and that create dynamical string loops.…
We investigate supergravity solutions describing D5 branes wrapped on a two cycle which are dual to N=2 super Yang Mills theory. Brane probing these solutions allows the moduli space of the field theory to be identified. There are a unique…
Recent work has made clear that we have far more control over the dynamics of supersymmetric than non-supersymmetric theories. Here, I discuss some issues in dynamical supersymmetry breaking both in ordinary field theory and in string…
A non-supersymmetric ten-dimensional open string theory is constructed as an orbifold of type I string theory, and as an orientifold of the bosonic type B theory. It is purely bosonic, and cancellation of massless tadpoles requires the…