Related papers: Tensionless Tales: Vacua and Critical Dimensions
We study circle compactifications of tensionless bosonic string theory, both at the classical and the quantum level. The physical state condition for different representations of BMS$_3$, the worldsheet residual gauge symmetry for…
Within the premise of canonical quantisation, we re-examine the quantum structure of bosonic tensionless string theory. In the classical theory, the worldsheet metric degenerates and the Bondi-Metnzer-Sachs (BMS) algebra arises as the…
We discuss string theory vacua which have the wrong number of spacetime dimensions, and give a crude argument that vacua with more than four large dimensions are improbable. We then turn to two dimensional vacua, which naively appear to…
We revisit the construction of the tensionless limit of closed bosonic string theory in the covariant formulation in the light of Galilean conformal symmetry that rises as the residual gauge symmetry on the tensionless worldsheet. We relate…
In addition to the familiar string theories with spacetime supersymmetry, there exist a number of non-supersymmetric ten-dimensional superstrings. Nearly all of these theories have closed string tachyons, indicating a misidentification of…
In this Thesis we investigate properties of stability, rigidity and unitarity of the string landscape in ten and lower dimensions. The dissertation explores these aspects by intertwining a detailed analysis of string vacua, with and without…
In this work, we investigate the worldsheet symmetry of bosonic brane theories and its quantum consistency in the tensionless limit. We find that the residual worldsheet symmetry after specific gauge fixing is generated by a novel algebra,…
These lectures aim to provide a global picture of the spaces of consistent quantum supergravity theories and string vacua in higher dimensions. The lectures focus on theories in the even dimensions 10, 8, and 6. Supersymmetry, along with…
Quantization of closed string proceeds with a suitable choice of worldsheet vacuum. A priori, the vacuum may be chosen independently for left-moving and right-moving sectors. We construct {\sl ab initio} quantized bosonic string theory with…
In order to investigate to what extent string theories are different vacua of a general string theory (the ``universal string"), we discuss realizations of the bosonic string as particular background of certain types of $W$-strings. Our…
The tensionless limit of classical string theory may be formulated as a topological theory on the world-sheet. A vector density carries geometrical information in place of an internal metric. It is found that path-integral quantization…
We study two-dimensional N=(4,4) supersymmetric gauge theories which do not have classical Higgs branches, but are believed to have isolated quantum Higgs vacua. We provide arguments for the existence of such vacua based on brane dynamics…
In the covariant-gauge two-dimensional quantum gravity, various derivations of the critical dimension D=26 of the bosonic string are critically reviewed, and their interrelations are clarified. It is shown that the string theory is not…
Free bosonic strings in noncommutative spacetime are investigated. The string spectrum is obtained in terms of light-cone quantization. We construct two different models. In the first model the critical dimension is still required to be 26…
We study how the dimensional regularization works in the light-cone gauge string field theory. We show that it is not necessary to add a contact term to the string field theory action as a counter term in this regularization at least at the…
Assuming that around the tachyon vacuum the kinetic term of cubic open string field theory is made purely of ghost operators we are led to gauge invariant actions which manifestly implement the absence of open string dynamics around this…
We discuss the notion of tensionless limit in quantum bosonic string theory, especially in flat Minkowski space, noncompact group manifolds (e.g., SL(2,R)) and coset manifolds (e.g., AdS). We show that in curved space typically there exists…
The $\mathbf{O}(D,D)$ covariant generalized metric, postulated as a truly fundamental variable, can describe novel geometries where the notion of Riemannian metric ceases to exist. Here we quantize a closed string upon such backgrounds and…
A recently introduced framework for the compactification of supersymmetric string theory involving noncritical manifolds of complex dimension $2k+D_{crit}$, $k\geq 1$, is reviewed. These higher dimensional manifolds are spaces with…
This work describes the formulation of the manifestly ghost-free (spacetime) light-cone gauge for bosonic string theory with non-trivial spacetime metric, antisymmetric tensor, dilaton and tachyon fields. The action is a general…