Related papers: String Theory or Field Theory?

These lectures present a general critical assessment of various frameworks for quantum gravity, with particular emphasis on string theory. The topics discussed cover field-theoretical approaches to quantum gravity, anomalies, bosonic and…

This article surveys some of the highlights in the development of string theory through the first superstring revolution in 1984. The emphasis is on topics in which the author was involved, especially the observation that critical string…

It is argued that string theory may pose new conceptual issues for the history and philosophy of science.

This book provides an introduction to string field theory (SFT). String theory is usually formulated in the worldsheet formalism, which describes a single string (first-quantization). While this approach is intuitive and could be pushed far…

String Theory is the result of the conjunction of three conceptually independent elements: (i) the metaphysical idea of a nomological unity of the forces, (ii) the model-theoretical paradigm of Quantum Field Theory, and (iii) the conflict…

This article contains a short review of the current status of string theory.

I briefly review several important formal theory developments in quantum field theory and string theory that were reported at ICHEP conferences in past decades, and explain how they underlie a new research area referred to as physical or…

We report on recent advances in the understanding of non-perturbative phenomena in the quantum theory of fields and strings.

A synthetic report of the advances in the study of classical and quantum string dynamics in curved backgrounds is provided, namely: the new feature of multistring solutions; the effect of a cosmological constant and of spacial curvature on…

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…

This is an introduction to some recent developments in string theory and M theory. We try to concentrate on the main physical aspects, and often leave more technical details to the original literature.

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…

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…

This is a brief review of the present status, of some recent developments and of the open challenges in string/M theory.

We consider a quantum field theory on a spherically symmetric quantum space time described by loop quantum gravity. The spin network description of space time in such a theory leads to equations for the quantum field that are discrete. We…

As of today there exist consistent, gauge-invariant string field theories describing all string theories: bosonic open and closed strings, open superstrings, heterotic strings and type II strings. The construction of these theories require…

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…

The paper is devoted to a description of quantum group structures in the geometric quantization of a self-interacting string field, which appear under a transition from a tree-level of the theory to the account of loop effects in…

We review the generalization of field theory to space-time with noncommuting coordinates, starting with the basics and covering most of the active directions of research. Such theories are now known to emerge from limits of M theory and…

We discuss the continuum field theory limit of the physical scenario described in Ref. [1], the universe arising from the interpretation of the most general collection of logical codes in terms of distributions of units of energy along…