Related papers: String operators for Cheshire strings in topologic…
String scattering amplitudes in the high energy asymptotic region have been studied by saddle point approximation. Recently, it was pointed out that infinitely many complex saddles contribute to string amplitudes even at tree-level after…
These are the lecture notes for a short course in topological string theory that I gave at Uppsala University in the fall of 2004. The notes are aimed at PhD students who have studied quantum field theory and general relativity, and who…
Motivated by closed string perturbation theory arguments by S. Shenker, we consider non-perturbative effects of characteristic strength $\mathcal{O}(e^{-1/g_{s}})$, with $g_{s}$ the closed string coupling constant, in supersymmetric…
Cosmic strings are topological defects possibly formed in the early Universe, which may be observable due to their gravitational effects on the cosmic microwave background radiation or gravitational wave experiments. To this effect it is…
We describe some recent progress in understanding and formulating string theory which is based on extensive studies of strings in lower (D=2) dimension. At the center is a large $W_{\infty}$ symmetry that appears most simply in the matrix…
The confining string in presence of dynamical quarks can behave in different ways, depending on the quark masses and on the number N_f N_c of charge species. For light masses and large N_f N_c the creation of quark pairs produces…
In string bit models, the superstring emerges as a very long chain of "bits", in which s fermionic degrees of freedom contribute positively to the ground state energy in a way to exactly cancel the destabilizing negative contributions of…
In the presence of a D-brane a string theory develops a new subsector. We show that for curved D-branes the corresponding sector is a (partially twisted) topological field theory. We use this result to compute the degeneracy of 2-branes…
We describe a protocol to read out the topological invariant of interacting 1D chiral models, based on measuring the mean chiral displacement of time-evolving bulk excitations. We present analytical calculations and numerical Matrix Product…
Chiral edge states of 2+1 dimensional Abelian and non-Abelian topological phases can be represented by chiral conformal field theories with integer and non-integer values of central charge, respectively. In this work we describe certain…
Flat directions are a generic feature of the scalar potential in supersymmetric gauge field theories. They can arise, for example, from D-terms associated with an extra abelian gauge symmetry. Even when supersymmetry is broken softly, there…
A careful treatment of closed string BRST cohomology shows that there are more discrete states and associated symmetries in $D=2$ string theory than has been recognized hitherto. The full structure, at the $SU(2)$ radius, has a natural…
We study string formation and dynamics in a scalar field theory with a global $U(1)$ symmetry. If a scalar field $\Phi$ is initially displaced from the minimum of a wine-bottle potential, even if uniformly over large spatial patches, small…
Spin-charge stripes belong to the most prominent low-temperature orders besides superconductivity in high-temperature superconductors. This phase is particularly challenging to study numerically due to finite-size effects. By investigating…
We elucidate how Chern and topological insulators fulfill an area law for the entanglement entropy. By explicit construction of a family of lattice Hamiltonians, we are able to demonstrate that the area law contribution can be tuned to an…
[Abridged] We consider extensions of the standard model based on open strings ending on D-branes. Assuming that the fundamental string mass scale M_s is in the TeV range and that the theory is weakly coupled, we discuss possible signals of…
Hard spheres in Newtonian fluids serve as paradigms for Non-Newtonian materials phenomena exhibited by colloidal suspensions. A recent experimental study (Cheng et al. 2011 Science, 333, 1276) showed that upon application of shear to such a…
We study topological insulators under dephasing noise. With examples of both a $2d$ Chern insulator and a $3d$ topological insulator protected by time-reversal symmetry, we demonstrate that there is a phase transition at finite dephasing…
Topological phases protected by symmetry can occur in gapped and---surprisingly---in critical systems. We consider non-interacting fermions in one dimension with spinless time-reversal symmetry. It is known that the phases are classified by…
The production of string charge during a crossing of certain oriented D-branes is studied. We compute the string charge in the system of a probe D2-brane and a background D6-brane by use of the equations of motion in the ten-dimensions. We…