Related papers: Polyakov's String: Twenty Five Years After
The worldsheet of the string theory, which consisting of 26 free scalar fields in Minkowski space, is two dimensional conformal field theory. If we denote the two dimension conformal field theory by elliptic curve and denote the partition…
This is a non-technical version of a talk presented at the conference, "S-Duality and Mirror Symmetry in String Theory" Trieste, June, 1996 which will appear in the proceedings.
As a contribution requested by the editors of a Memorial Volume for Peter G.O. Freund (1936-2018), we recall the lively particle theory group at the Enrico Fermi Institute of the University of Chicago in the late sixties, of which Peter was…
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…
It has been argued that the consistency of quantum theory with black hole physics requires nonlocality not present in ordinary effective field theory. We examine the extent to which such nonlocal effects show up in the perturbative S-matrix…
These lectures intend to give a pedagogical introduction into some of the developments in string theory during the last years. They include perturbative T-duality and non perturbative S- and U-dualities, their unavoidable demand for…
We discuss three classes of solitonic solutions in string theory: instantons, monopoles and string-like solitons. Instantons may provide a nonperturbative understanding of the vacuum structure of string theory, while monopoles may appear in…
Recent developments in string theory have important implications for cosmology. Topics discussed here are inflation, the cosmological constant, smoothing of cosmological singularities, and dark matter from parallel universes. Talk presented…
String theory and supersymmetry are theoretical ideas that go beyond the standard model of particle physics and show promise for unifying all forces. After a brief introduction to supersymmetry, we discuss the prospects for its experimental…
In these two lectures, delivered at the XXXVII Karpacz Winter School, February 2001, I review some applications of superspace in various topics related to string theory and M-theory. The first lecture is mainly devoted to descriptions of…
This is a set of introductory lecture notes on conformal field theory. Unlike most existing reviews on the subject, CFT is presented here from the perspective of a unitary quantum field theory in Minkowski space-time. It begins with a…
The article surveys aspects of the Fourier-Mukai transform, its relative version and some of its applications in string theory. To appear in Encyclopedia of Mathematical Physics, published by Elsevier in early 2006. Comments/corrections…
A covariant calculus for the construction of effective string theories is developed. Effective string theory, describing quantum string-like excitations in arbitrary dimension, has in the past been constructed using the principles of…
Using probabilistic methods, we first define Liouville quantum field theory on Riemann surfaces of genus $\mathbf{g}\geq 2$ and show that it is a conformal field theory. We use the partition function of Liouville quantum field theory to…
The defect conformal field theory describing intersecting D3-branes at a C^2/Z_k orbifold is used to (de)construct the theory of intersecting M5-branes, as well as M5-branes wrapping the holomorphic curve xy=c. The possibility of a 't Hooft…
Conformal perturbation theory is a powerful tool to describe the behavior of statistical-mechanics models and quantum field theories in the vicinity of a critical point. In the past few years, it has been extensively used to describe…
This work is my contribution to the proceedings of the conference "SFT2010 -- the Third International Conference on String Field Theory and Related Topics". We discuss properties of nonlocal tachyons and nonlocal SFT inspired cosmology.
K strings in Yang-Mills theory can be considered as bound states of k elementary confining strings carrying one unit of colour flux. Current estimates of k-string tension sigma_k are very sensitive to the leading corrections due to quantum…
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 explore the consequences of imposing Polyakov's zig/zag-invariance in the search for a confining string. We first find that the requirement of zig/zag-invariance seems to be incompatible with spacetime supersymmetry. We then try to find…