Related papers: The no-ghost theorem for string theory in curved b…
In the first part of this talk, I consider some exact string solutions in curved spacetimes. In curved spacetimes with a Killing vector (timelike or spacelike), the string equations of motion and constraints are reduced to the Hamilton…
Spectra of a string in $ SL(2,R) $ and three dimensional (BTZ) black hole geometry are discussed. We consider a free field realization of ^sl (2,R) different from the standard ones in treatment of zero-modes. Applying this to the string…
In recent work Kachru, Kumar and Silverstein introduced a special class of non-supersymmetric type II string theories in which the cosmological constant vanishes at the first two orders of perturbation theory. Heuristic arguments suggest…
We address some recent concerns about the absence of the Boulware-Deser ghost in the Stuckelberg formulation of nonlinear massive gravity. First we provide general arguments for why any ghost analysis in the Stuckelberg formulation has to…
In this work, the DDF-like approach to the pure spinor cohomology is extended to the next ghost number level, the so called antifields. In a direct (supersymmetric) parallel to the bosonic string, some properties of the ghost number two…
The objective of this thesis is to present a viable extension of general relativity free from cosmological singularities. A viable cosmology, in this sense, is one that is free from ghosts, tachyons or exotic matter, while staying true to…
We discuss a class of (local and non-local) theories of gravity that share same properties: i) they admit the Einstein spacetime with arbitrary cosmological constant as a solution; ii) the on-shell action of such a theory vanishes and iii)…
The theory of ghost imaging is developed in a Gaussian-state framework that both encompasses prior work - on thermal-state and biphoton-state imagers - and provides a complete understanding of the boundary between classical and quantum…
We investigate anomalies in the class of non-local field theories that have been proposed as an ultraviolet completion of 4-D Quantum Field Theory (QFT) with generalizing the kinetic energy operators to an infinite series of higher…
Classical scalar fields have been considered as a possible effective description of dark matter. We show that, for any metric theory of gravity, no static, spherically symmetric, regular, spatially localized, attractive, stable spacetime…
The exact black hole solution of 2D closed string theory has, as any other maximally extended Schwarzschild-like geometry, two asymptotically flat spacetime domains. One can get rid of the second domain by gauging the discrete symmetry on…
A radiatively stable de Sitter spacetime is constructed by considering an intrinsically non-commutative and generalized-geometric formulation of string theory, which is related to a family of F-theory models endowed with non-trivial…
We study a modified bosonic string theory that has a pressureless ``dust'' field on the string worldsheet. The dust is a real scalar field with unit gradient which breaks conformal invariance. Hamiltonian analysis reveals a time…
We construct generalized symmetries for linearized Einstein gravity in arbitrary dimensions. First-principle considerations in QFT force generalized symmetries to appear in dual pairs. Verifying this prediction helps us find the full set of…
We study three types of star products in SFT: the ghosts, the twisted ghosts and the matter. We find that their Neumann coefficients are related to each other in a compact way which includes the Gross-Jevicki relation between matter and…
We show that vacuum string field theory with the singular kinetic operator conjectured by Gaiotto, Rastelli, Sen and Zwiebach can be obtained by field redefinition from a regular theory constructed by Takahashi and Tanimoto. We solve the…
In this paper we study general properties of noncommutative field theories obtained from the Seiberg-Witten limit of string theories in the presence of an external B-field. We analyze the extension of the Wightman axioms to this context and…
We prove that every unitary two-dimensional conformal field theory (with no extended chiral algebra, and with central charges $c_L, c_R > 1$) contains a primary operator with dimension $\Delta_1$ that satisfies $0 < \Delta_1 < (c_L +…
Singularity-free cosmological solutions may be obtained from the string action at tree level if the dimension of the space-time is greater than 10 and if brane configurations are taken into account. The behaviour of the dilaton field in…
Four-particle tree-level scattering amplitudes in string theory are magically consistent with unitarity, reflected in the non-trivial fact that beneath the critical dimension, the residues of the amplitudes on massive poles can be expanded…