Related papers: Unconventional string-like singularities in flat s…
In this lecture I summarize recent developments on strings propagating in curved spacetime. Exact conformal field theories that describe gravitational backgrounds such as black holes and more intricate gravitational singularities have been…
This paper investigates the scattering states of spin-1/2 particles in the spacetime of a spinning cosmic string with spacelike disclination and dislocation, with and without a Coulomb interaction. Working within the tetrad formalism, we…
The unique, conical spacetime created by cosmic strings brings about distinctive gravitational lensing phenomena. The variety of these distinctive phenomena is increased when the strings have non-trivial mutual interactions. In particular,…
I discuss a special class of singularities obtained as a natural 4-dimensional generalization of the conical singularity. Such singularities (called quasiregular) are ruinous for the predictive force of general relativity, so one often…
Time dependent orbifolds with spacelike or null singularities have recently been studied as simple models of cosmological singularities. We show that their apparent simplicity is an illusion: the introduction of a single particle causes the…
It is shown that there are static spacetimes with timelike curvature singularities which appear completely nonsingular when probed with quantum test particles. Examples include extreme dilatonic black holes and the fundamental string…
We confront the problem of giving a fundamental definition to perturbative string theory in spacetimes with totally compact space (taken to be a torus for simplicity, though the nature of the problem is very general) and non-compact time.…
Progress on string theory in curved spacetimes since 1992 are reviewed. After a short introduction on strings in Minkowski and curved spacetimes, we focus on strings in cosmological spacetimes. The classical behaviour of strings in FRW and…
Nonrelativistic string theory in flat spacetime is described by a two-dimensional quantum field theory with a nonrelativistic global symmetry acting on the worldsheet fields. Nonrelativistic string theory is unitary, ultraviolet complete…
It is shown that the space-time with a conical singularity, which describes a thin cosmic string, is hyperbolic in the sense that a unique H^1 solution exists to the initial value problem for the wave equation with a certain class of…
We study the global structure of the exact two-dimensional space-time which emerges from string theory. Previous work has shown that in the semi-classical limit, this is a black hole similar to the Schwarzschild solution. However, we find…
Spacetime singularities are studied in both the $D+d$-dimensional string theory and its $D$-dimensional effective theory, obtained by the Kaluza-Klein compactification. It is found that spacetime singularities in the low dimensional…
We study the geometry generated by a massless cosmic string. We find that this is given by a Riemann flat spacetime with a conical singularity along the worldsheet of the string. The geometry of such a spacetime is completely fixed by the…
We present a general discussion of strings propagating on noncompact coset spaces $G/H$ in terms of gauged WZW models, emphasizing the role played by isometries in the existence of target space duality. Fixed points of the gauged…
Recent results on classical and quantum strings in a variety of black hole and cosmological spacetimes, in various dimensions, are presented. The curved backgrounds under consideration include the $2+1$ black hole anti de Sitter spacetime…
The properties of cosmic strings have been investigated in detail for their implications in early-universe cosmology. Although many variations of the basic structure have been discovered, with implications for both the microscopic and…
The existence and stability under linear perturbation of closed timelike curves in the spacetime associated to Schwarzschild black hole pierced by a spinning string are studied. Due to the superposition of the black hole, we find that the…
Non-singular two and three dimensional string cosmologies are constructed using the exact conformal field theories corresponding to SO(2,1)/SO(1,1) and SO(2,2)/SO(2,1). All semi-classical curvature singularities are canceled in the exact…
A rotating cosmic string spacetime has a singularity along a timelike curve corresponding to a one-dimensional source of angular momentum. Such spacetimes are not globally hyperbolic: they admit closed timelike curves near the string. This…
An action for a string and a particle with two timelike dimensions is proposed and analyzed. Due to new gauge symmetries and associated constraints, the motion of each system in the background of the other is equivalent to effective motion…