Related papers: Old Puzzles
Over the past century, rooted in the theory of general relativity, cosmology has developed a very successful physical model of the universe: the {\em big-bang model}. Its construction followed different stages to incorporate nuclear…
If supersymmetry turns out to be a symmetry of nature at low energies, the first order of business to measure the soft breaking parameters. But one will also want to understand the symmetry, and its breaking, more microscopically. Two…
As a most promising candidate for quantum theory of the gravity, the superstring theory has attracted many researchers including cosmologists. It is expected that the cosmological initial singularity is avoided within the context of the…
The topic of cosmic strings provides a bridge between the physics of the very small and the very large. They are predicted by some unified theories of particle interactions. If they exist, they may help to explain some of the largest-scale…
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…
In this talk I will survey some of the basic facts about superstring theories in 10 dimensions and the dualities that relate them to M theory in 11 dimensions. Then I will mention some important unresolved issues.
We briefly review superstring theories, highlighting the important concepts, developments, and open problems of the subject.
Supersymmetry plays a main role in all current thinking about superstring theory. Indeed, many remarkable properties of string theory have been explained using supersymmetry as a tool. So far, there has been no unbroken supersymmetry…
The recent progress in string theory strongly suggests that formation and evaporation of black holes is a unitary process. This fact makes it imperative that we find a flaw in the semiclassical reasoning that implies a loss of information.…
The weakly coupled vacuum of E_8 x E_8 heterotic string theory remains a promising candidate for the underlying theory of the Standard Model. The particle spectrum and the issue of dilaton stabilization are reviewed. Specific models for…
Cosmic strings are linear concentrations of energy that form whenever phase transitions in the early universe break axial symmetries as originally shown by Kibble. They are the result of frustrated order in the quantum fields responsible…
Three aspects of supersymmetric theories are discussed: electroweak symmetry breaking, the issues of flavor, and gauge unification. The heavy top quark plays an important, sometimes dominant, role in each case. Additional symmetries lead to…
Supersymmetry and Grand Unification are the two most promising directions for physics beyond the Standard Model. They receive indirect experimental support from the apparent lightness of the Higgs boson, the values of the gauge couplings…
We consider the low energy phenomenology of superstrings. In particular we analyse supersymmetry breaking via gaugino condensate and we compare the phenomenology of the two different approaches to stabilize the dilaton field. We study the…
This is a broad-brush review of how string theory addresses several important questions of gravitational physics. The problem of non-renormalizability is first reviewed, followed by introduction of string theory as an ultraviolet-finite…
The biggest question in beyond the standard model physics is what are the scales of new physics. Ideas about scales, as well as experimental evidence and constraints, are surveyed for a variety of possible forms of new physics:…
Effective theories based on experimental data provide powerful probes and tests of underlying theories in elementary particle physics. Examples within and beyond the Standard Model are discussed, including a specific model for supersymmetry…
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…
Brane inflation predicts the production of cosmic superstrings with tension 10^{-12}<G\mu<10^{-7}. Superstring theory predicts also the existence of a dilaton with a mass that is at most of the order of the gravitino mass. We show that the…
The two major goals in fundamental physics are: 1) Unification of all forces incorporating relativity and quantum theory, 2) Understanding the origin and evolution of the Universe as well as explaining the smallness of the cosmological…