Related papers: N=2 String Geometry and the Heavenly Equations
Open and closed strings with two worldsheet supersymmetries in 2+2 dimensional spacetime are reviewed in the NSR formulation. I briefly discuss their quantization, mutual and self-interactions, classical spacetime dynamics and…
We study the action of picture-changing and spectral flow operators on a ground ring of ghost number zero operators in the chiral BRST cohomology of the closed N=2 string and describe an infinite set of symmetry charges acting on physical…
The well known N=2 string theory describes self-dual gravity, as was shown by Ooguri and Vafa sometime ago. In search of a variant of this theory which would describe self-dual supergravity in 2+2 dimensions, we have constructed two new N=2…
We conjecture that $W$ gravity can be interpreted as the gauge theory of $\phi$ diffeomorphisms in the space of dimensionally-reduced $D=2+2$ $SU^*(\infty)$ Yang-Mills instantons. These $\phi$ diffeomorphisms preserve a volume-three form…
We present several theories of four-dimensional gravity in the Plebanski formulation, in which the tetrads and the connections are the independent dynamical variables. We consider the relation between different versions of gravitational…
We show that almost all string theories, including the bosonic string, the superstring and $W$-string theories, possess a twisted N=2 superconformal symmetry. This enables us to establish a connection between topological gravity and the…
We study the gauge/gravity duality for theories with four dimensional ${\cal N}=2$ supersymmetries. We consider the large class of generalized quiver field theories constructed recently by one of us (D.G.). These field theories can also be…
The (2,2) world-sheet supersymmetric string theory is discussed from the viewpoint of string/membrane unification. The effective field theory in the closed string target space is known to be the 2+2 dimensional (integrable) theory of…
We review some aspects of the construction of self-dual gravity and the associated field theory of ${\cal N}=2$ strings in terms of two-dimensional sigma models at large $N$. The theory is defined through a large $N$ Wess-Zumino-Witten…
Plebanski's second heavenly equation reduces the problem of finding a self-dual Einstein metric to solving a non-linear second-order PDE for a single function. Plebanski's original equation is for self-dual metrics obtained as perturbations…
In Plebanski's self-dual formulation general relativity becomes SO(3) BF theory supplemented with the so-called simplicity (or metricity) constraints for the B-field. The main dynamical equation of the theory states that the curvature of…
In this series of lectures I present a review of the geometric structures of supergravity in diverse dimensions mostly relevant to p-brane physics and to pinpoint the correspondence between the macroscopic and microscopic description of…
We find a dual gravity theory to pure confining N=1 supersymmetric SU(N) gauge theory in four dimensions which has the correct gauge coupling running in addition to reproducing the appropriate pattern of chiral symmetry breaking. It is…
It is shown that two dimensional (2d) topological gravity in the conformal gauge has a larger symmetry than has been hitherto recognized; in the formulation of Labastida, Pernici and Witten it contains a twisted ``small'' N=4 superconformal…
We analyze topological string theory on a two dimensional torus, focusing on symmetries in the matter sector. Even before coupling to gravity, the topological torus has an infinite number of point-like physical observables, which give rise…
The string field theory of N=(2,1) heterotic strings describes a set of self-dual Yang-Mills fields coupled to self-dual gravity in 2+2 dimensions. We show that the exact classical action for this field theory is a certain complexification…
Besides the String Theory context, the quantum General Relativity can be studied by the use of constrained topological field theories. In the celebrated Plebanski formalism, the constraints connecting topological field theories and gravity…
A correspondence between type IIB string theory with N D7-branes on R^{1,3} x C^1/Z_2 x T^2/Z_2 x T^2/Z_2 and pure N=1 SU(N) gauge theory in four dimensions is proposed and argued. First the supergravity background of unwrapped and flat…
In the context of gauge/gravity duality, we try to understand better the proposed duality between the fractional D2-brane supergravity solutions of (Nucl. Phys. B 606 (2001) 18, hep-th/0101096) and a confining 2+1 dimensional gauge theory.…
We show that the BRST quantum version of pure D=4 N=2 supergravity can be topologically twisted, to yield a formulation of topological gravity in four dimensions. The topological BRST complex is just a rearrangement of the old BRST complex,…