Related papers: Landskepticism: or Why Effective Potentials Don't …
In this thesis we provide new tools to determine and explore the Landscape of four-dimensional effective field theories originating from string and M-theory. The main aim is to introduce, within four-dimensional effective descriptions,…
We discuss string theory vacua which have the wrong number of spacetime dimensions, and give a crude argument that vacua with more than four large dimensions are improbable. We then turn to two dimensional vacua, which naively appear to…
I argue that questions of algorithmic decidability, computability and complexity should play a larger role in deciding the "ultimate" theoretical description of the Landscape of string vacua. More specifically, I examine the notion of the…
String theory has been the dominating research field in theoretical physics during the last decades. Despite the considerable time elapse, no new testable predictions have been derived by string theorists and it is understandable that…
We discuss systematic approaches to the classification of string/M theory vacua, and physical questions this might help us resolve. To this end, we initiate the study of ensembles of effective Lagrangians, which can be used to precisely…
At the present time, string theory (and its generalizations) remain relatively abstruse subjects to the particle phenomenologist and experimentalist. Yet, striking developments of the last two years offer hope that a fundamental…
An overview of some of the developments in string theory over the past two years is given, focusing on four topics: realistic (standard model like) models from string theory, geometric engineering and theories with fluxes, the gauge…
Talk given at the 26th Workshop: ``From Superstrings to Supergravity" Erice - Sicily, 5-12 December 1992: In this talk we discuss string consistency requirements on four dimensional string models, namely the cancellation of target space…
Besides the string scale, string theory has no parameter except some quantized flux values; and the string theory Landscape is generated by scanning over discrete values of all the flux parameters present. We propose that a typical…
I review the physical properties of different vacua in the background independent open string field theory. Talk presented at Strings 2001, Mumbai, India, http://theory.theory.tifr.res.in/strings/Proceedings/#sha-s.
String theory is accused by some of its critics to be a purely abstract mathematical discipline, having lost the contact to the simple yet deeply rooted questions which physics provided until the beginning of this century. We argue that, in…
Recently, it has become clear that neighboring multiple vacua might have interesting consequences for the physics of the early universe. In this paper we investigate the topography of the string landscape corresponding to complex structure…
We argue that if string theory as an approach to the fundamental laws of physics is correct, then there is almost no room for anthropic arguments in cosmology. The quark and lepton masses and interaction strengths are determined.
The transcendental expectation of string theory is that the nature of the fundamental forces, particle spectra and masses, together with coupling constants, is uniquely determined by mathematical and logical consistency, non-empirically,…
We briefly survey our present understanding of the string landscape, and use it to discuss the chances that we will see low energy supersymmetry at the LHC.
This is a rendering of a review talk on the state of String Theory, given at the EPS-2003 Conference, intended for a wide audience of experimental and theoretical physicists. It emphasizes general ideas rather than technical aspects.
Recently, a number of authors have challenged the conventional assumption that the string scale, Planck mass, and unification scale are roughly comparable. It has been suggested that the string scale could be as low as a TeV. The greatest…
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…
The study of string models including both unoriented closed strings and open strings presents a number of new features when compared to the standard case of models of oriented closed strings only. We review some basic features of the…
We posit the existence of the Marshland within string theory. This region is the boundary between the landscape of consistent low-energy limits of quantum gravity, and the swampland of theories that cannot be embedded within string theory…