Related papers: A mini-course on topological strings
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…
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.
Over the past three decades, considerable effort has been devoted to studying the rich and diverse phenomenologies of heterotic strings exhibiting spacetime supersymmetry. Unfortunately, during this same period, there has been relatively…
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…
Talk given at the ``4th Hellenic School on Elementary Particle Physics", Corfu, 2-20 September 1992: The propagation of strings in cosmological space-time backgrounds is reviewed. We show the relation of a special class of cosmological…
The recent developments in string theory suggest that the space-time coordinates should be generalized to non-commuting matrices. Postulating this suggestion as the fundamental geometrical principle, we formulate a candidate for covariant…
These are the notes on two-dimensional conformal field theory, based on a lecture course for graduate math students, given by P.M. in fall 2022 at the University of Notre Dame. These notes are intended to be substantially reworked and…
We discuss different formulations and approaches to string theory and $ 2d$ quantum gravity. The generic idea to get a unique description of {\it many} different string vacua altogether is demonstrated on the examples in $ 2d$ conformal,…
String theoretical ideas might be relevant for particle physics model building. Ideally one would hope to find a unified theory of all fundamental interactions. There are only few consistent string theories in D=10 or 11 space-time…
In these lecture notes for the Les Houches School on Applications of Random Matrices in Physics we give an introduction to the connections between matrix models and topological strings. We first review some basic results of matrix model…
In this talk I review recent developments in superstring theory. In the first half of the talk I discuss some of the earlier developments in this subject. This includes a review of the status of string theory as a unified theory of gravity…
I present a summary of the recent progress made in field and string theory which has led to a reformulation of quantum-group polynomial invariants for knots and links into new polynomial invariants whose coefficients can be described in…
In this thesis my papers hep-th/0104190, hep-th/0310214, hep-th/0405072 and hep-th/0406065 are put into context. The thesis is mainly focused on noncommutative field theory and string theory, so results in the papers that are not related to…
We study the topological $G_2$ and $Spin(7)$ strings at 1-loop. We define new double complexes for supersymmetric NSNS backgrounds of string theory using generalised geometry. The 1-loop partition function then has a target-space…
We propose correspondences between 4d quantum field theories with N=2,1,0 (super)conformal invariance and Type IIB string theory on various orbifolds. We argue using the spacetime string theory, and check using the beta functions (exactly…
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…
These are the lecture notes for a short course on tensor categories. The coverage in these notes is relatively non-technical, focussing on the essential ideas. They are meant to be accessible for beginners, but it is hoped that also some of…
String theory is the most promising candidate theory for a unified description of all fundamental forces exist in the nature. It provides a mathematical framework that combine quantum theory with Einstein's general theory of relativity. But…
This is the preliminary manuscript of a book on symplectic field theory based on a lecture course for PhD students given in 2015-16. It covers the essentials of the analytical theory of punctured pseudoholomorphic curves, taking the…
We study the topologically twisted string theory on the general back-ground $AdS_3\times {\cal N}$ which is compatible with the world-sheet N=2 superconformal symmetry and is extensively discussed in the recent works (hep-th/9904024,…