Related papers: Gravity and strings
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…
Using the renormalization-group formalism, a sigma model of a special type- in which the metric and the dilaton depend explicitly on one of the string coordinates only-is investigated near two dimensions. It is seen that dilatonic gravity…
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…
Amidst all candidates of physics beyond the Standard Model, string theory provides a unique proposal for incorporating gauge and gravitational interactions. In string theory, a four-dimensional theory that unifies quantum mechanics and…
The interplay between string theory and cosmology is very promising. Since string theory will yield a quantum theory of space-time and unify all forces of nature, it has the potential of addressing many of the conceptual problems of the…
It is hoped that these lectures will give a point of entry into that vast web of related ideas that go under the name "string theory". I start with a more or less qualitative introduction to gravity as a field theory and sketch how one…
I describe our understanding of physics near the planck length, in particular the great progress of the last four years in string theory. Superstring theory, and a recent extension called M theory, are leading candidates for a quantum…
I discuss the early developments of string theory with respect to its connection with gauge theory and general relativity from my own perspective. The period covered is mainly from 1969 to 1974, during which I became involved in research on…
Recently, a new framework for solving the hierarchy problem has been proposed which does not rely on low energy supersymmetry or technicolor. The gravitational and gauge interactions unite at the electroweak scale, and the observed weakness…
In this talk I review recent developments in superstring theory. In the first half of the talk I discuss some of the earlier developments in this subject. This includes a review of the status of string theory as a unified theory of gravity…
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…
The cosmological constant problem and the compatibility of gravity with quantum mechanics are the two most pressing problems in all of gravitational theory. While string theory nicely addresses the latter, it has so far failed to provide…
We conjecture a general upper bound on the strength of gravity relative to gauge forces in quantum gravity. This implies, in particular, that in a four-dimensional theory with gravity and a U(1) gauge field with gauge coupling g, there is a…
General relativity is highly successful in explaining a wide range of gravitational phenomena including the gravitational waves emitted by binary systems and the shadows cast by supermassive black holes. From a modern perspective the theory…
We discuss string theory relations between gravity and gauge theory tree amplitudes. Together with $D$-dimensional unitarity, these relations can be used to perturbatively quantize gravity theories, i.e. they contain the necessary…
String theory is a quantum theory that reproduces the results of General Relativity at long distances but is completely different at short distances. Mathematically, string theory is based on a very new -- and little understood -- framework…
If the graviton possesses an arbitrarily small (but nonvanishing) mass, perturbation theory implies that cosmic strings have a nonzero Newtonian potential. Nevertheless in Einstein gravity, where the graviton is strictly massless, the…
If string theory is correct, then our observable Universe may be a 3-dimensional "brane" embedded in a higher-dimensional spacetime. This theoretical scenario should be tested via the state-of-the-art in gravitational experiments -- the…
These lectures present some topics of string phenomenology and contain two parts. In the first part, I review the possibility of lowering the string scale in the TeV region, that provides a theoretical framework for solving the mass…
String theory is the leading contemporary framework to explore the synthesis of quantum mechanics with gravity. String phenomenology aims to study string theory while maintaining contact with observational data. The fermionic $Z_2\times…