Related papers: Is string field theory background independent?
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…
The status of string theory is reviewed, and major recent developments - especially those in going beyond perturbation theory in the string theory and quantum field theory frameworks - are discussed. This analysis helps better understand…
The aim of this paper is to explain carefully the arguments behind the assertion that the correct quantum theory of gravity must be background independent. We begin by recounting how the debate over whether quantum gravity must be…
Intuitively speaking, a classical field theory is background-independent if the structure required to make sense of its equations is itself subject to dynamical evolution, rather than being imposed ab initio. The aim of this paper is to…
String field theory is a candidate for a full non-perturbative definition of string theory. We aim to define string field theory on a space-time lattice to investigate its behaviour at the quantum level. Specifically, we look at string…
String Field Theory is a formulation of String Theory as a Quantum Field Theory in target space. It allows to tame the infrared divergences of String Theory and to approach its non-perturbative structure and background independence. This…
Work in progress is described which aims to construct a background independent formulation of M theory by extending results about background independent states and observables from quantum general relativity and supergravity to string…
String theory is accused by some of its critics to be a purely abstract mathematical discipline, having lost the contact to the simple yet deeply rooted questions which physics provided until the beginning of this century. We argue that, in…
I discuss various aspects of background independence in the context of string theory, for which so far we have no manifestly background independent formulation. After reviewing the role of background independence in classical Einstein…
The problems with background independence are discussed in the example of open string theory. Based on the recent proposal by Witten I calculate the String Field Theory action in conformal perturbation theory to second order and demonstrate…
This article provides some historical background and then reviews developments in string theory over the last twenty-five years or so. Both perturbative and non-perturbative approaches to string theory are surveyed and their impact on how…
Given a family of world-sheet superconformal field theories related by marginal deformation, we can formulate superstring field theory based on any of these world-sheet theories. Background independence is the statement that these different…
We introduce the notion of background independent quantum field theory. The distinguishing feature of this theory is that the dynamics can be formulated without recourse to a background metric structure. We show in a simple model how the…
Recent years have seen noteworthy progress in the mathematical formulation of quantum field theory and perturbative string theory. We give a brief survey of these developments. It serves as an introduction to the more detailed collection…
We prove local background independence of the complete quantum closed string field theory using the recursion relations for string vertices and the existence of connections in CFT theory space. Indeed, with this data we construct an…
String theory developed by demanding consistency with quantum mechanics. In this paper we wish to reverse the reasoning. We pretend open string field theory is a fully consistent definition of the theory - it is at least a self consistent…
String theory is at the moment the only advanced approach to a unification of all interactions, including gravity. But, in spite of the more than thirty years of its existence, it does not make any empirically testable predictions, and it…
This is an invited contribution to the Special Issue of "Foundations of Physics" titled "Forty Years Of String Theory: Reflecting On the Foundations". I have been asked to assess string theory as an outsider, and to compare it with the…
Using the string field theory recently proposed by the authors and collaborators, we give a background independent formulation of rational noncritical string theories with $c\leq 1$. With a little modification of the string field…
String geometry theory is a candidate of the non-perturbative formulation of string theory. In order to determine the string vacuum, we need to clarify how string backgrounds are described in string geometry theory. In this paper, we show…