Related papers: Beyond Space-Time
Synthesizing older ideas about the 1/N expansion in gauge theory, the quantum mechanics of black holes, and quantum field theory in Anti de Sitter space, a new correspondence between gauge theory and quantum gravity has illuminated both…
The implications of string theory for understanding the dimension of uncompactified spacetime are investigated. Using recent ideas in string cosmology, a new model is proposed to explain why three spatial dimensions grew large. Unlike the…
We review aspects of spacetime singularities from the view point of string theory. Examples considered include cosmological, cosmic string and black-hole singularities. We also discuss the consistency of viewing black-holes as excited…
The concept of deformation of Riemannian geometry is reviewed, with applications to gravitation and cosmology. Starting with an analysis of the cosmological constant problem, it is shown that space-times are deformable in the sense of local…
These are the (somewhat extended) lecture notes for four lectures delivered at the spring school during the thematic programme "Mathematical Perspectives of Gravitation beyond the Vacuum Regime" at ESI Vienna in February 2022.
The notion of a space-time uncertainty principle in string theory is clarified and further developed. The motivation and the derivation of the principle are first reviewed in a reasonably self-contained way. It is then shown that the…
This talk gives an overview of the recently-formulated Fluid/Gravity correspondence, which was developed in the context of gauge/gravity duality. Mathematically, it posits that Einstein's equations (with negative cosmological constant) in…
I present a point of view about what M Theory is and how it is related to the real world, which departs in certain crucial respects from conventional wisdom. I argue against the possibility of a background independent formulation of the…
A special relativity based on the de Sitter group is introduced, which is the theory that might hold up in the presence of a non-vanishing cosmological constant. Like ordinary special relativity, it retains the quotient character of…
We propose a precise duality between pure de Sitter quantum gravity in 2+1 dimensions and a double-scaled matrix integral. This duality unfolds in two distinct aspects. First, by carefully quantizing the gravitational phase space, we arrive…
We discuss spacetime singularity resolution in the context of the gravity/gauge correspondence, for brane systems which give rise to gauge theories with eight supercharges and no hypermultiplets. The discussion is aimed at non-experts.…
We make a number of remarks on linearized gravity with cosmological constant in any dimension, which, we argue, can be useful in a quantum gravity framework. For this purpose we assume that the background space-time metric corresponds to…
We extend the system of ungauged N=2, d=4 supergravity coupled to vector multiplets and hypermultiplets with 2-form potentials. The maximal number of 2-form potentials that one may introduce is equal to the number of isometries of either…
In this talk, I discuss recent developments concerning the possibility of large extra spacetime dimensions. After briefly reviewing how such dimensions can lower the fundamental GUT, Planck, and string scales, I then outline how these…
The hypothesis that the causal properties of space-time, as well as other properties of physical systems like unitarity, charge conservation, etc., might be decided by the higher dimensional structure (in particular, higher-dimensional…
We consider some fundamental constants from the point of view of the duality symmetry. Our analysis of duality is focused on three issues: the maximum radiated power of gravitational waves, the cosmological constant, and the magnetic…
A quantum mechanical formulation of de Sitter cosmological spacetimes still eludes string theory. In this paper we conjecture a potentially rigorous framework in which the status of de Sitter space is the same as that of a resonance in a…
The new generalization of the gauge interaction for the bosonic strings is found. We consider some quasiequivariant maps from the space of metrics on the worldsheet to the space of $n$-tuples of one- and two-dimensional loops. The…
String compactifications with T-duality twists are revisited and the gauge algebra of the dimensionally reduced theories calculated. These reductions can be viewed as string theory on T-fold backgrounds, and can be formulated in a `doubled…
This presentation is intended to give a flavour of the physics to be studied and discovered by exploiting the interface between string theory, M-theory and field theory provided by the dynamics of extended objects called `branes', and their…