Related papers: M-theory and the string genus expansion
A duality relationship between certain brane configurations in type IIA and type IIB string theory is explored by exploiting the geometrical origins of each theory in M-theory. The configurations are dual ways of realising the…
This Ph.D. thesis collects results obtained investigating two different aspects of modern unifying theories. In the first part I summarized results achieved investigating simplicial aspects of string dualities. Exploiting Boundary Conformal…
String theory is the leading contemporary framework to explore the synthesis of quantum mechanics with gravity. String phenomenology aims to study string theory while maintaining contact with observational data. The fermionic $Z_2\times…
We consider M theory 5-branes with compact transverse dimensions. In certain limits the theory on the 5-brane decouples and defines ``little string theories'' in 5+1 dimensions. We show that the familiar structure of IIA/IIB,M,F- theory in…
T-duality is one of the essential elements of string theory. Recently, Hull has developed a formalism where the dimension of the target space is doubled so as to make T-duality manifest. This is then supplemented with a constraint equation…
What is the meaning of entanglement in a theory of extended objects such as strings? To address this question we consider the spatial entanglement between two intervals in the Gross-Taylor model, the string theory dual to two-dimensional…
The evidence for string/string-duality can be extended from the matching of the vector couplings to gravitational couplings. In this note this is shown in the rank three example, the closest stringy analog of the Seiberg/Witten-setup, which…
We consider a sigma model formulation of open string theory with boundary fermions carrying Chan-Paton charges at the string ends. This formalism is particularly suitable for studying world-volume potentials on D-branes. We perform explicit…
Massless particles in $n+1$ dimensions lead to massive particles in $n$ dimensions on Kaluza-Klein reduction. In string theory, wrapped branes lead to multiplets of massive particles in $n$ dimensions, in representations of a duality group…
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…
We consider string theory in a time dependent orbifold with a null singularity. The singularity separates a contracting universe from an expanding universe, thus constituting a big crunch followed by a big bang. We quantize the theory both…
Certain two dimensional topological field theories can be interpreted as string theory backgrounds in which the usual decoupling of ghosts and matter does not hold. Like ordinary string models, these can sometimes be given space-time…
Let M be a closed, oriented, n-dimensional manifold. In this paper we give a Morse theoretic description of the string topology operations introduced by Chas and Sullivan, and extended by the first author, Jones, Godin, and others. We do…
We consider the cosmological evolution of the three-brane in the background of type IIB string theory. For two different backgrounds which give nontrivial dilaton profile we have derived the Friedman-like equations. These give the…
In this note, we discuss some features of the Dirichlet S-brane, defined as a Dirichlet boundary condition on a time-like embedding coordinate of open strings. We analyze the Euclidean theory on the S-brane world-volume, and trace its…
We review recent developments in duality symmetric string theory. We begin with the world sheet doubled formalism which describes strings in an extended space time with extra coordinates conjugate to winding modes. This formalism is…
We study the spacetime decay to nothing in string theory and M-theory. First we recall a nonsupersymmetric version of heterotic M-theory, in which bubbles of nothing -- connecting the two E_8 boundaries by a throat -- are expected to be…
We consider string theory on the Lorentzian Melvin geometry, which is obtained by analytically continuing the two-parameter Euclidean Melvin background. Because this model provides a solvable conformal field theory that describes…
Some physicists hope to use string/M-theory to construct a comprehensive underlying theory of our physical world a "final theory". Can such a theory be tested? A quantum theory of gravity must be formulated in 10 dimensions, so obviously…
These lectures begin by reviewing the evidence for S duality of the toroidally compactified heterotic string in 4d that was obtained in the period 1992--94. Next they review recently discovered dualities that relate all five of the 10d…