Related papers: Open strings and their symmetry groups
Currently, string theory represents the only advanced approach to a unification of all interactions, including gravity. In spite of the more than thirty years of its existence it did not make any empirically testable predictions. And it is…
There have been many remarkable developments in our understanding of superstring theory in the past few years, a period that has been described as ``the second superstring revolution.'' Several of them are discussed here. The presentation…
A brief review of the status of duality symmetries in string theory is presented. The evidence is accumulating rapidly that an enormous group of duality symmetries, including perturbative T dualities and non-perturbative S-dualities,…
In this set of lectures I review recent developments in string theory emphasizing their non-perturbative aspects and their recently discovered duality symmetries. The goal of the lectures is to make the recent exciting developments in…
This is the written version of a short talk given at the University of Leipzig in December 1998. It reviews some general aspects of string theory from the viewpoint of the search for an unifying theory. Here, special emphasis lies on the…
This paper is a synthesis of talks I gave at the Cargese Workshop in June 2004 and the Munich Conference on Superstring Vacua in November 2004. I present arguments which show that the landscape of string theory is not a well established…
In these introductory notes I explain some basic ideas in string field theory. These include: the concept of a string field, the issue of background independence, the reason why minimal area metrics solve the problem of generating all…
A self-consistent string field theory with interaction is formulated. The symmetry algebra of this theory includes, in the low-energy limit, local space-time symmetries, and the Brans-Dicke equation describes a class of low-energy…
String theory is the leading candidate for a unified theory of the standard model and gravity. In the last few years theorists have realized that there is a unique structure underlying string theory. In this unification a prominent role is…
This article is based on a talk given at the ``Strings'97'' conference. It discusses the search for the universality class of confining strings. The key ingredients include the loop equations, the zigzag symmetry, the non-linear…
String theory is at the moment the only advanced approach to a unification of all interactions, including gravity. But, in spite of the more than thirty years of its existence, it does not make any empirically testable predictions, and it…
In these lectures we review how some of the recent developments in string theory are closely related to generic properties of supersymmetry. Lectures given at the Nato Advanced Study Institute on "Strings, Branes and Dualities", Cargese,…
In these lectures I review the progress made over the last few years in the subject of string and string-inspired phenomenology. I take a practical approach, thereby concentrating more on explicit examples rather than on formal…
This paper addresses the question as to whether the methodology followed in building and assessing string theory can be considered scientific in the same sense, say, that the methodology followed in building and assessing the Standard Model…
This is mainly a brief review of some key achievements in a `hot'' area of theoretical and mathematical physics. The principal aim is to outline the basic structures underlying {\em integrable} quantum field theory models with {\em…
This is a short arrangement of notes on D-branes, offered as an embellishment of five lectures which were presented at the 1998 Trieste Spring School entitled ``Non-Perturbative Aspects of String Theory and Supersymmetric Gauge Theory''.…
We define string geometry: spaces of superstrings including the interactions, their topologies, charts, and metrics. Trajectories in asymptotic processes on a space of strings reproduce the right moduli space of the super Riemann surfaces…
Over the last few years, string theory has changed profoundly. Most importantly, novel duality relations have emerged which involve gauge theories of brane excitations on one side and various closed string backgrounds on the other. In this…
This is an invited contribution to the Special Issue of "Foundations of Physics" titled "Forty Years Of String Theory: Reflecting On the Foundations". I have been asked to assess string theory as an outsider, and to compare it with the…
We review the existence, formation and properties of cosmic strings in string theory, the wide variety of observational techniques that are being employed to detect them, and the constraints that current observations impose on string theory…