Related papers: Recent Developments in Superstring Theory
Cosmic (super)strings offer promising ways to test ideas about the early universe and physics at high energies. While in field theory constructions their tension is usually assumed to be constant (or at most slowly-varying), this is often…
In these lectures I discuss various unsolved problems of string theory and their relations to quantum gravity, 3d Ising model, large N QCD, and quantum cosmology. No solutions are presented but some new and perhaps useful approaches are…
We review recent developments in the theory of supermembranes and their relation to matrix models.
Duality symmetries in supergravity theories, together with their implications for string theory, are reviewed.
We briefly review some recent developments in large N gauge theories which utilize the power of string perturbation techniques.
I describe how superstring theory may violate spin-statistics in an experimentally observable manner. Reviewing the basics of superstring interactions and how to utilize these to produce a statistical phase, I then apply these ideas to two…
A review is given of recent research on two-dimensional gauge theories, with particular emphasis on the equivalence between these theories and certain string theories with a two-dimensional target space. Some related open problems are…
This is a survey article on the recent development of "stringy geometry and topology of orbifolds", a new subject of mathematics motivated by orbifold string theory.
An overview is presented of some cosmological aspects of string theory. Recent developments are emphasised, especially the attempts to derive inflation or alternatives to inflation from the dynamics of branes in string theory. Time…
This is a short account, based on a talk given at the 2024 Moriond Cosmology Conference, of where and why string theory matters in early universe cosmology. It is written for a cosmology audience predisposed to be at best sceptical, and at…
Recent developments involving strongly coupled superstrings are discussed from a phenomenological point of view. In particular, strongly coupled $E_8\times E'_8$ is described as an appropriate long-wavelength limit of M-theory, and some…
The first part is an introduction to conformal field theory and string perturbation theory. The second part deals with the search for a deeper answer to the question posed in the title. Contents: 1. Conformal Field Theory 2. String Theory…
We attempt to review all trustworthy and well-controlled de Sitter compactifications of string theory.
New Developments in String Gravity and String Cosmology are reported: 1-String driven cosmology and its Predictions. 2-The primordial gravitational wave background in string cosmology. 3-Non-singular string cosmologies from Exact Conformal…
The quantum string field theoretic structure of interactive phenomena is discussed
These lectures are devoted to introducing some of the basic features of quantum geometry that have been emerging from compactified string theory over the last couple of years. The developments discussed include new geometric features of…
We give an overview of the status of string cosmology. We explain the motivation for the subject, outline the main problems, and assess some of the proposed solutions. Our focus is on those aspects of cosmology that benefit from the…
This article, based on the Klein lecture, contains some new results and new speculations on various topics. They include discussion of open strings in the AdS space, unusual features of D-branes, conformal gauge theories in higher…
There is evidence that string theory possesses a large discretuum of stable and/or metastable ground states, with zero or four supersymmetries in four dimensions. I discuss critically the nature of this evidence. Assuming this "landscape"…
Three subjects are considered here: a self-dual non-critical string that appears in Type IIB superstring theory at points in ${\rm K3}$ moduli space where the Type IIA theory has extended gauge symmetry; a conformal field theory singularity…