Related papers: David Olive: his life and work
In these lecture notes, an introduction to superstring theory is presented. Classical strings, covariant and light-cone quantization, supersymmetric strings, anomaly cancelation, compactification, T-duality, supersymmetry breaking, and…
The evolution of light theories began with Isaac Newton's corpuscular model, which explained reflection and refraction but could not account for diffraction and interference. In contrast, Christiaan Huygens proposed a wave theory,…
We consider, in a string theory framework, physical processes of phenomenological interest in models with a low string scale. The amplitudes we study involve tree-level virtual gravitational exchange, divergent in a field-theoretical…
The time evolution operator (Schr\"odinger functional) of quantum field theory can be expressed in terms of first quantised particles moving on the orbifold $S^1/Z_2$. We give a graphical derivation of this that generalises to second…
A truncation of string field theory is compared with the duality invariant effective action of $D=4, N=4$ heterotic strings to cubic order. The three string vertex must satisfy a set of compatibility conditions. Any cyclic three string…
These lectures trace the origin of string theory as a theory of hadronic interactions (predating QCD itself) to the present ideas on how the QCD string may arise in Superstring theory in a suitably deformed background metric. The…
Supersymmetric gauge theories in four dimensions have taught us many important physics lessons. These can both inform and be informed by future work on the lattice. I focus on three issues: the properties of supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory…
String theory is changing the relationship between mathematics and physics. The central role is played by the phenomenon of duality, which is intrinsic to quantum physics and abundant in string theory.
We construct Lorentz invariant and gauge invariant 1PI effective action for closed and open superstrings and demonstrate that it satisfies the classical BV master equation. We also construct the quantum master action for this theory…
We report on numerical simulations of one dimensional maximally supersymmetric SU(N) Yang-Mills theory, by using the lattice action with two exact supercharges. Based on the gauge/gravity duality, the gauge theory corresponds to N D0-branes…
Scattering of fundamental states of type IIB supergravity and superstring theory is discussed at low orders in perturbation theory in the background of a D-instanton. The integration over fermionic zero modes in both the low energy…
In quantum field theory, an orbifold is a way to obtain a new theory from an old one by gauging a finite global symmetry. This definition of orbifold does not make sense for quantum gravity theories, that admit (conjecturally) no global…
The argument of Hodge duality symmetry is introduced starting from the electromagnetic field. Introducing bosonic string theory, O(d,d) duality symmetry can be implemented when there exist d-symmetries, which allows one to write Hodge-dual…
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 heterotic string compactified on a six-torus is described by a low-energy effective action consisting of N=4 supergravity coupled to N=4 super Yang-Mills, a theory that was studied in detail many years ago. By explicitly carrying out…
The monodromy relations in string theory provide a powerful and elegant formalism to understand some of the deepest properties of tree-level field theory amplitudes, like the color-kinematics duality. This duality has been instrumental in…
In these lectures we review how some of the recent developments in string theory are closely related to generic properties of supersymmetry. Lectures given at the Nato Advanced Study Institute on "Strings, Branes and Dualities", Cargese,…
This is a brief overview on the current status of string theory for non-specialists. The purpose is to give an aspect on the nature of string theory as a unified theory of all interactions including quantum gravity and to discuss future…
Three subjects are considered here: a self-dual non-critical string that appears in Type IIB superstring theory at points in ${\rm K3}$ moduli space where the Type IIA theory has extended gauge symmetry; a conformal field theory singularity…
We point out that the Kalb-Ramond field can couple to the Ramond and Neveu-Schwarz fields of superstring theory in a way that can generate a coupling of the Kalb-Ramond field to dark matter dipole moments. Electroweak dipole dark matter…