Related papers: Quotient Stacks and String Orbifolds

In this note we observe that, contrary to the usual lore, string orbifolds do not describe strings on quotient spaces, but rather seem to describe strings on objects called quotient stacks, a result that follows from simply unraveling…

This is the writeup of a lecture given at the May Wisconsin workshop on mathematical aspects of orbifold string theory. In the first part of this lecture, we review recent work on discrete torsion, and outline how it is currently understood…

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.

Recently, there is an explosive growth of activities to understand stringy properties of orbifolds. In this article, we survey some of recent developments.

We consider quotients of string and M-theory by discrete subgroups of the U-duality group. This results in what we call O-folds, which are generalisations of orbifolds and orientifolds, and generically involve non-geometric identifications…

In this fourth paper of the series, I clarify the somewhat mysterious relation between the large class of {\it orientation orbifolds} (with twisted open-string CFT's at $\hat c=52$) and {\it orientifolds} (with untwisted open strings at…

One cannot yet point to any firm string prediction. While many approximate string ground states are known with interesting properties, we do not have any argument that one or another describes what we observe around us, and for reasons…

In this paper we study string compactifications on Deligne-Mumford stacks. The basic idea is that all such stacks have presentations to which one can associate gauged sigma models, where the group gauged need be neither finite nor…

We study symmetries between untwisted and twisted strings on asymmetric orbifolds. We present a list of asymmetric orbifold models to possess intertwining currents which convert untwisted string states to twisted ones, and vice versa. We…

We summarize the results obtained in the last few years about permutation orbifolds in two-dimensional conformal field theories, their application to string theory and their use in the construction of four-dimensional heterotic string…

In this short note we give an overview of recent work on string propagation on stacks and applications to gauged linear sigma models. We begin by outlining noneffective orbifolds (orbifolds in which a subgroup acts trivially) and related…

We study curved space versions of matrix string theory taking as a definition of the theory a gauged matrix sigma model. By analyzing the divergent terms in the loop expansion for the effective action we reduce the problem to a simple…

In 1985, physicists Dixon, Harvey, Vafa and Witten studied string theories on Calabi-Yau orbifolds (cf. [DHVW]). An interesting discovery in their paper was the prediction that a certain physicist's Euler number of the orbifold must be…

In recent years a lot of attention has been paid to topological spaces which are a bit more general than smooth manifolds - orbifolds. Orbifolds are intuitively speaking manifolds with some singularities. The formal definition is also…

We study interacting features of $S_N$ Orbifold CFTs. Concentrating on characters (associated with $S_N$ Orbifold primaries) we first formulate a novel procedure for evaluating them through $GL(\infty)_+$ tracing. The result is a polynomial…

Recent work has provided a direct string calculation of the internal coordinate dependence of gauge field tadpoles on the orbifold C^3/Z_3. We investigate the structure of these profiles in momentum and coordinate space representations…

In this dissertation, we study various aspects of type IIB string theory compactified on freely acting orbifolds. We focus particularly on asymmetric orbifolds, which are examples of non-geometric string compactifications and constitute an…

This review is devoted to open strings, and in particular to the often surprising features of their spectra. It follows and summarizes developments that took place mainly at the University of Rome ``Tor Vergata'' over the last decade, and…

In these lectures, we review the physics of time-dependent orbifolds of string theory, with particular attention to orbifolds of three-dimensional Minkowski space. We discuss the propagation of free particles in the orbifold geometries,…

In this thesis, two aspects of string theory are discussed, tensionless strings and supersymmetric sigma models. The equivalent to a massless particle in string theory is a tensionless string. Even almost 30 years after it was first…