Related papers: On the universality of string theory
The early history of string theory is marked by a shift from strong interaction physics to quantum gravity. The first string models and associated theoretical framework were formulated in the late 1960s and early 1970s in the context of the…
The past year has seen enormous progress in string theory. It has become clear that all of the different string theories are different limits of a single theory. Moreover, in certain limits, one obtains a new, eleven-dimensional structure…
This contribution, aimed mostly at experimental particle physicists, reviews some of the main ideas and results of String Theory in a non-technical language. It originates from the talks presented by the authors at the Electro-Weak session…
This lecture presents a brief overview of the early history of string theory and supersymmetry. It describes how the S-matrix theory program for understanding the strong nuclear force evolved into superstring theory, which is a promising…
I review, for the benefit of younger physicists, arguments proposed at the beginning of the 21st century, which show that it is misleading to think of the parameters in string theory models of quantum gravity as vacuum expectation values of…
We investigate the most general phase space of configurations, consisting of all possible ways of assigning elementary attributes, ``energies'', to elementary positions, ``cells''. We discuss how this space possesses structures that can be…
A brief discussion is presented assessing the achievements and challenges of string phenomenology: the subfield dedicated to study the potential for string theory to make contact with particle physics and cosmology. Building from the well…
Cosmic strings are predicted by many field-theory models, and may have been formed at a symmetry-breaking transition early in the history of the universe, such as that associated with grand unification. They could have important…
Some physicists hope to use string/M-theory to construct a comprehensive underlying theory of our physical world a "final theory". Can such a theory be tested? A quantum theory of gravity must be formulated in 10 dimensions, so obviously…
In this lecture I make some educated guesses, about the landscape of string theory vacua. Based on the recent work of a number of authors, it seems plausible that the lanscape is unimaginably large and diverse. Whether we like it or not,…
We review recent developments on nonrelativistic string theory. In flat spacetime, the theory is defined by a two-dimensional relativistic quantum field theory with nonrelativistic global symmetries acting on the worldsheet fields. This…
A very brief review is given of the current state of research in quantum gravity. Over the past fifteen years, two approaches have emerged as the most promising paths to a quantum theory of gravity: string theory and quantum geometry. I…
The apparent impossibility of extending non-relativistic quantum mechanics to a relativistic quantum theory is shown to be due to the insufficient structural richness of the field of complex numbers over which quantum mechanics is built. A…
What follows is a broad-brush overview of the recent synergistic interactions between mathematics and theoretical physics of quantum field theory and string theory. The discussion is forward-looking, suggesting potentially useful and…
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…
In this opening talk I first describe how we are entering a data-rich era, and what clues we might soon have to physics beyond the SM (on a time scale of several years). Then we turn to a number of the basic issues we hope to explain, and…
This lecture surveys a few loosely related topics, ranging from the scarcity of quantum field theories -- and the role that this has played, and still plays, in physics -- to paradoxes involving black holes in soluble two dimensional string…
The purpose of this note is to provide a short invitation to the universal algebraic approach to topological string theory. In the first section we make an attempt to explain the origin of this approach and how it fits into the bigger…
These are the lecture notes of the introductory String Theory course held by one of the authors for the master program of Theoretical Physics at Turin University. The world-sheet approach to String Theory is pedagogically introduced in the…
The problem of reconciling general relativity and quantum theory has fascinated and bedeviled physicists for more than 70 years. Despite recent progress in string theory and loop quantum gravity, a complete solution remains out of reach. I…