Related papers: Tameness, Strings, and the Distance Conjecture
Yang-Mills theory in 2+1 dimensions showed to be a research area yielding firm results in theoretical physics when compared to lattice computations. Recent analysis displayed astonishing agreement for the value of the string tension and…
String theory avoids the ultraviolet infinities that arise in trying to quantize gravity. It is also more predictive than conventional quantum field theory, one aspect of this being the way that it contributed to the emergence of the…
We review recent work which has significantly sharpened our geometric understanding and interpretation of the moduli space of certain $N$=2 superconformal field theories. This has resolved some important issues in mirror symmetry and has…
We argue that two four-dimensional strongly coupled superconformal field theories, on the Higgs branch in certain large N limits, become respectively (2,0) theory and (1,1) little string theory in six dimensions. We identify the spectrum of…
The quest to find a nonperturbative formulation of topological string theory has recently seen two unrelated developments. On the one hand, via quantization of the mirror curve associated to a toric Calabi-Yau background, it has been…
We discuss the obstacles for defining a set of observable quantities analogous to an S-matrix which are needed to formulate string theory in an accelerating universe. We show that the quintessence models with the equations of state $-1 < w…
The Swampland Distance Conjecture claims that effective theories derived from a consistent theory of quantum gravity only have a finite range of validity. This will imply drastic consequences for string theory model building. The refined…
The breakdown of gravitational effective field theories is intimately connected to the emergence of infinite towers of light states near infinite-distance limits in field space. In string theory, up to duality frame, such towers arise from…
We argue that quintessence may reside in certain corners of the string landscape. It arises as a linear combination of internal space components of higher rank forms, which are axion-like at low energies, and may mix with 4-forms after…
We conjecture that in a consistent supergravity theory with non-vanishing gravitino mass, the limit $m_{3/2}\rightarrow 0$ is at infinite distance. In particular one can write $M_{\mathrm{tower}} \sim m_{3/2}^\delta$ so that as the…
We show, using a theorem of Milnor and Margulis, that string theory on compact negatively curved spaces grows new effective dimensions as the space shrinks, generalizing and contextualizing the results in hep-th/0510044. Milnor's theorem…
Point particles fall freely along geodesics; strings do not. In string theory all probes of spacetime structure, including photons, are extended objects and therefore always subject to tidal forces. We illustrate how string theory modifies…
The topic of cosmic strings provides a bridge between the physics of the very small and the very large. They are predicted by some unified theories of particle interactions. If they exist, they may help to explain some of the largest-scale…
We study cosmological solutions in the effective heterotic string theory with $\alpha'$-correction terms in string frame. It is pointed out that the effective theory has an ambiguity via field redefinition and we analyze generalized…
In order for string theory to be made compatible with the low-energy observations of a positive cosmological constant, there have been attempts to construct dS vacua in string theory which are particularly difficult to realize. Instead of…
This review talk focusses on some of the interesting developments in the area of superstring compactification that have occurred in the last couple of years. These include the discovery that ``mirror symmetric" pairs of Calabi--Yau spaces,…
Among Swampland conditions, the distance conjecture characterizes the geometry of scalar fields and the de Sitter conjecture constrains allowed potentials on it. We point out a connection between the distance conjecture and a refined…
String theory, if it describes nature, is probably strongly coupled. In light of recent developments in string duality, this means that the ``real world'' should correspond to a region of the classical moduli space which admits no weak…
A novel mechanism to produce a cosmic network of fundamental superstrings based on a time-varying string tension has been recently proposed. It has been found that fundamental superstrings can grow in a kinating background driven by the…
The implications of string theory for understanding the dimension of uncompactified spacetime are investigated. Using recent ideas in string cosmology, a new model is proposed to explain why three spatial dimensions grew large. Unlike the…