Related papers: Strings from Almost Nothing
We overview symmetries of string scattering amplitudes in the high energy limits of both the fixed angle or Gross regime (GR) and the fixed momentum transfer or Regge regime (RR). We calculated high energy string scattering amplitudes (SSA)…
Superstring theories are very promising theoretically, but the enormous landscape of string vacua and the (likely) very large underlying string scale imply that they may never be tested directly. Nevertheless, concrete constructions…
We derive fully covariant expressions for all two-point scattering amplitudes involving closed string tachyon and massless strings from Dirichlet brane in type 0 theories. The amplitude for two massless D-brane fluctuations to produce…
Lorentz invariance, unitarity, and causality enforce powerful constraints on the theory space of physical scattering amplitudes. However, virtually all efforts in this direction have centered on the very simplest case of four-point…
We explore the space of meromorphic amplitudes with extra constraints coming from the shape of the leading Regge trajectory. This information comes in two guises: it bounds the maximal spin of exchanged particles of a given mass; it leads…
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…
Recently, a topological proof of the spin-statistics Theorem has been proposed for a system of point particles which does not require relativity or field theory, but assumes the existence of antiparticles. We extend this proof to a system…
We show how to make a topological string theory starting from an $N=4$ superconformal theory. The critical dimension for this theory is $\hat c= 2$ ($c=6$). It is shown that superstrings (in both the RNS and GS formulations) and critical…
We argue for the existence of phase transitions in $3+1$ dimensions associated with the appearance of tensionless strings. The massless spectrum of this theory does not contain a graviton: it consists of one $N=2$ vector multiplet and one…
We examine recent claims of a large set of flux compactification solutions of string theory. We conclude that the arguments for AdS solutions are plausible. The analysis of meta-stable dS solutions inevitably leads to situations where long…
The super Virasoro minimal string is defined by coupling spacelike and timelike super Liouville theories on the worldsheet. There are four different theories 0A$^\pm$ and 0B$^\pm$ depending on discrete choices on the worldsheet. We show…
Following Dyson's analogy between the quantum field theory and the 19th-century chemistry-both explain how but not why-one could also establish an analogy between atomic physics and string theory. Atomic physics was needed to answer the…
In these lecture notes presented at the 2015 Villa de Leyva Summer School, we give an introduction to superstring theory. We begin by studying the particle and superparticle in order to get a better understanding on the superstring side.…
In this paper, we study the zeros of string theory utilizing its curve-integral representation. Firstly, we note that for bosonic strings the tachyon amplitude in curve-representation is identical to the kinematic shifted Tr$\phi^3$…
The interaction of defects can lead to a phenomenon of erasure. During this process, a lower-dimensional object gets absorbed and dissolved by a higher-dimensional one. The phenomenon is very general and has a wide range of implications,…
This thesis discusses how the pure spinor formalism can be used to efficiently compute superstring scattering amplitudes. We emphasize the pure spinor superspace form of the kinematic factors, where the simplifying features of this language…
We derive the null energy condition, understood as a constraint on the Einstein-frame Ricci tensor, from worldsheet string theory. For a closed bosonic string propagating in a curved geometry, the spacetime interpretation of the Virasoro…
The string equivalent of a massless particle ($m=0$) is the tensionless string ($T=0$). The study of such strings is of interest when trying to understand the high energy limit of ordinary strings. I discuss the classical $T\to 0$ limit of…
This article surveys some of the highlights in the development of string theory through the first superstring revolution in 1984. The emphasis is on topics in which the author was involved, especially the observation that critical string…
We study string propagation in a spacetime with positive cosmological constant, which includes a circle whose radius approaches a finite value as |t|\to\infty, and goes to zero at t=0. Near this cosmological singularity, the spacetime looks…