Related papers: Spontaneously broken symmetry in string theory
On the example of a real scalar field, an approach to quantization of non-linear fields and construction of the perturbation theory with account of spontaneous symmetry breaking is proposed. The method is based on using as the main…
We study pairs of planar D-branes intersecting on null hypersurfaces, and other related configurations. These are supersymmetric and have finite energy density. They provide open-string analogues of the parabolic orbifold and null-fluxbrane…
We study string theory on orbifolds in the presence of an antisymmetric constant background field and discuss some of new aspects of the theory. It is shown that the term with the antisymmetric field has a topological nature like a…
We consider massless string scattering amplitudes in a limit where the number of external particles becomes very large, while the energy of each particle remains small. Using the growth of the volume of the relevant moduli space, and by…
A class of non-supersymmetric string backgrounds can be constructed using twists that involve space-time fermion parity. We propose a non-perturbative definition of string theory in these backgrounds via gauge theories with supersymmetry…
We study the physics of open strings in bosonic and type II string theories in the presence of unstable D-branes. When the potential energy of the open string tachyon is at its minimum, Sen has argued that only closed strings remain in the…
In this letter a new class of twisted strings is presented, with an asymmetry between the holomorphic and antiholomorphic sectors parametrized by an integer $N$. Their physical content is given by the massless resonances of the closed…
We describe the breaking of supersymmetry in M-theory by coordinate dependent (Scherk-Schwarz) compactification of the eleventh dimension. Supersymmetry is spontaneously broken in the gravitational and moduli sector and communicated to the…
The question of whether Bose-Einstein condensation involves spontaneous symmetry breaking is surprisingly controversial. We review the theory of spontaneous symmetry breaking in ferromagnets, compare it to the theory of symmetry breaking in…
I study the spontaneous breakdown of supersymmetry when higher-dimensional Yang-Mills or the type-I $SO(32)$ string theory are compactified on magnetized tori. Because of the universal gyromagnetic ratio $g=2$, the splittings of all…
We study bosonic and space-time supersymmetric membranes with small tensions corresponding to stretched configurations. Using a generalized lightcone gauge, one may set up a perturbation theory around configurations having zero tension. We…
We describe how a stable effective theory in which particles of the same fermion number attract may spontaneously break Lorentz invariance by giving non-zero fermion number density to the vacuum (and therefore dynamically generating a…
We consider ${\rm U}(1)$-symmetric scalar quantum field theories at zero temperature. At nonzero charge densities, the ground state of these systems is usually assumed to be a superfluid phase, in which the global symmetry is spontaneously…
We discuss spontaneous breaking of continuum symmetries, whose generators do explicitly depend on the spacetime coordinates. We clarify the relation between broken symmetries and elastic variables at both zero and finite temperatures,…
The gauge symmetries that underlie string theory arise from inner automorphisms of the algebra of observables of the associated conformal field theory. In this way it is possible to study broken and unbroken symmetries on the same footing,…
We discuss three closely related questions; i)~Given a conformal field theory, how may we deform it? ii)~What are the symmetries of string theory? and iii)~Does string theory have free parameters? We show that there is a distinct…
The bracket operation on mutually local BRST classes may be combined with Lorentz invariance and analyticity to write an infinite set of finite difference relations on string scattering amplitudes. When combined with some simple physical…
Quantum field theories with exact but spontaneously broken conformal invariance have an intriguing feature: their vacuum energy (cosmological constant) is equal to zero. Up to now, the only known ultraviolet complete theories where…
We reconsider the tensionless limit on bosonic closed string theory, where the 3d Bondi-Metzner-Sachs (BMS) algebra appears as symmetries on the worldsheet, as opposed to two copies of the Virasoro algebra in the case of the usual tensile…
Spontaneous symmetry breaking is related to the appearance of emergent phenomena, while a non-vanishing order parameter has been viewed as the sign of turning into such symmetry breaking phase. Recently, we have proposed a continuous…