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We give an overview of moduli stabilization in compactifications of string theory. We summarize current methods for construction and analysis of vacua with stabilized moduli, and we describe applications to cosmology and particle physics.…
We review recent work in which compactifications of string and M theory are constructed in which all scalar fields (moduli) are massive, and supersymmetry is broken with a small positive cosmological constant, features needed to reproduce…
Topologically massive gravity (TMG) in three dimensions provides an interesting toy model for constructing a quantum theory of gravity. Although it can be thought of as standing as a theory in its own right, it is also of interest to see…
Infinite distance limits in the moduli space of a quantum gravity theory are characterized by having infinite towers of states becoming light, as dictated by the Distance Conjecture in the Swampland program. These towers imply a drastic…
This paper analyzes the effective field theory perspective on modern physics through the lens of the quantum theory of gravitational interaction. The historical part argues that the search for a theory of quantum gravity stimulated the…
String theories should reduce to ordinary four-dimensional field theories at low energies. Yet the formulation of the two are so different that such a connection, if it exists, is not immediately obvious. With the Schwinger proper-time…
In string theory, the traditional picture of a Universe that emerges from the inflation of a very small and highly curved space-time patch is a possibility, not a necessity: quite different initial conditions are possible, and not…
One of the leading candidates for quantum gravity, viz. string theory, has the following features incorporated in it. (i) The full spacetime is higher dimensional, with (possibly) compact extra-dimensions; (ii) There is a natural minimal…
This elementary introduction to string field theory highlights the features and the limitations of this approach to quantum gravity as it is currently understood. String field theory is a formulation of string theory as a field theory in…
If there is a single underlying "theory of everything" which in some limits of its "moduli space" reduces to the five weakly coupled string theories in 10D, and 11D SUGRA, then it is possible that all six of them have some common domain of…
This is the text of a talk given at the Inaugural Conference of the Asia Pacific Center for Theoretical Physics, Seoul, Korea, June 9, 1996. If nature is described by string theory, and if the compactification radius is large (as suggested…
We study gauge theories which are associated with classical vacua of perturbative Type II string theory that allows for a conformal field theory description. We show that even if we compactify seven spatial dimensions (allowing for one…
The cosmological constant problem is turned around to argue for a new foundational physics postulate underlying a consistent quantum theory of gravity and matter, such as string theory. This postulate is a quantum equivalence principle…
Utilizing the idea of extra large dimensions, it has been suggested that the gauge and gravity couplings unification can happen at a scale as low as 1 TeV. In this paper, we explore this phenomenological possibility within string theory. In…
Guided by the naturalness criterion for an exponentially small cosmological constant, we present a string theory motivated 4-dimensional $\mathcal{N}=1$ non-linear supergravity model (or its linear version with a nilpotent superfield) with…
It is emphasized that compactified little string theories have compact moduli spaces of vacua, which globally probe compact string geometry. Compactifying various little string theories on T^3 leads to 3d theories with exact, quantum…
In string theory, the brane world scenario, where the Standard Model gauge and matter fields live inside some branes while gravitons live in the bulk, can be a viable description of our universe. In this note we argue that the brane world…
Two dimensional classical string theory is solved in any curved spacetime. The complete spacetime required to describe the classical string motions turns out to be larger than the global space required by complete particle geodesics. The…
We define entanglement entropy in string perturbation theory using the orbifold method -- a stringy analog of the replica method in field theory. To this end, we use the Newton series to analytically continue in $N$ the partition functions…
We introduce and develop the theory of metaparticles. At the classical level, this is a world-line theory with the usual reparameterization invariance and two additional features. The theory is motivated by string theory on compact targets,…