Related papers: String breaking in a cold wind as seen by string m…
The study of string models including both unoriented closed strings and open strings presents a number of new features when compared to the standard case of models of oriented closed strings only. We review some basic features of the…
We study decay of unstable D-branes in string theory in the presence of electric field, and show that the classical open string theory results for various properties of the final state agree with the properties of closed string states into…
We simulate five different systems belonging to the universality class of the gauge dual of three-dimensional random percolation to study the underlying effective string theory at finite temperature. All the data for the finite temperature…
A brief review of the status of duality symmetries in string theory is presented. The evidence is accumulating rapidly that an enormous group of duality symmetries, including perturbative T dualities and non-perturbative S-dualities,…
A general prediction of string unification is the existence of exotic states with fractional charges under the free unbroken Abelian generators of the underlying GUT symmetry. Such states may be long-lived due to the existence of weakly…
We propose a string theory construction for the system of two heavy quarks and two light antiquarks. The potential of the system is a function of separation between the quarks. We define a critical separation distance below which the system…
We consider the phase transition of a string with tension $\eps_1$ to a string with a smaller tension $\eps_2$ at finite temperature. For sufficiently small temperatures the transition proceeds through thermally catalyzed quantum tunneling,…
We study the effects of friction on the scaling evolution of string networks in condensed matter and cosmological contexts. We derive a generalized `one-scale' model with the string correlation length $L$ and velocity $v$ as dynamical…
I review recent progress on the connection between string theory and quantum chromodynamics in the context of the gauge/gravity duality. Emphasis is placed on conciseness and conceptual aspects rather than on technical details. Topics…
String breaking is an intriguing phenomenon crucial to the understanding of lattice gauge theories (LGTs), with strong relevance to both condensed matter and high-energy physics (HEP). Recent experiments investigating string breaking in…
Thermodynamics of a heavy quark-antiquark pair in SU(3)-QCD is studied both below and above the deconfinement critical temperature $T_c$. In the quenched case, a model of the string passing through heavy valence gluons yields a correct…
We investigate the stability of the pion string in a thermal bath and a dense medium. We find that stability is dependent on the order of the chiral transition. String core stability within the experimentally allowed regime is found only if…
The spatial string tension for 3+1 dimensional QCD at finite temperature is measured. The gauge configurations we re generated with two light and one heavier strange quark on lattices of size $16^3 4$ and $24^3 6$. This spatial string…
We investigate the behaviour of a finite chain of Brownian particles, interacting through a pairwise quadratic potential, with one end of the chain fixed and the other end pulled away at slow speed, in the limit of slow speed and small…
Fracture of highly stretched materials challenges our view of how things break. We directly visualize rupture of tough double-network (DN) gels at >50\% strain. During fracture, crack tip shapes obey a $x\sim y^{1.6}$ power-law, in contrast…
The interaction energy and force between widely separated strings is analyzed in a field theory having applications to superconducting cosmic strings, the SO(5) model of high-temperature superconductivity, and solitons in nonlinear optics.…
We study a class of time dependent solutions of the vacuum Einstein equations which are plane waves with weak null singularities. This singularity is weak in the sense that though the tidal forces diverge at the singularity, the rate of…
We argue that cosmic strings with high winding numbers generally form in first-order gauge symmetry breaking phase transitions, and we demonstrate this using computer simulations. These strings are heavier than single-winding strings and…
Spontaneous particle-pair formation is a fundamental phenomenon in nature. It can, for example, appear when the potential energy between two particles increases with separation, as if they were connected by a tense string. Beyond a critical…
A strongly-coupled sector can feature a supercooled confinement transition in the early universe. We point out that, when fundamental quanta of the strong sector are swept into expanding bubbles of the confined phase, the distance between…