Related papers: Corfu 05 lectures - part I: Strings on curved back…
This article provides some historical background and then reviews developments in string theory over the last twenty-five years or so. Both perturbative and non-perturbative approaches to string theory are surveyed and their impact on how…
This dissertation consists of a comprehensive and pedagogical review of Maldacena's original derivation of the AdS/CFT correspondence and the main topics of string theory necessary to understand it. The large $N$ expansion of Yang-Mills…
The goal of these lectures is to present an informal but precise introduction to a body of concepts and methods of interest in number theory and string theory revolving around modular forms and their generalizations. Modular invariance lies…
We investigate the following three consistency conditions for constructing string theories on orbifolds: i) the invariance of the energy-momentum tensors under twist operators, ii) the duality of amplitudes and iii) modular invariance of…
The study of curved D-brane geometries in type II strings implies a general relation between local singularities $\cx W$ of Calabi-Yau manifolds and gravity free supersymmetric QFT's. The minimal supersymmetric case is described by F-theory…
This thesis consists of two parts. In the first part we study some topics in $\mathcal{N}=1$ supersymmeric gauge theory and the relation to matrix models. We review the relevant non-perturbative techniques for computing effective…
These lectures from the 1995 Trieste Summer School in High Energy Physics and Cosmology give an elementary introduction to perturbative superstring theory, superstring phenomenology, and the fermionic construction of perturbative string…
String propagation on a curved background defines an embedding problem of surfaces in differential geometry. Using this, we show that in a wide class of backgrounds the classical dynamics of the physical degrees of freedom of the string…
We revisit semiclassical strings, in particular we focus on rigidly rotating strings, in the near horizon geometry of two orthogonal stacks of NS5-branes (I-branes) using the string sigma model. We determine the conserved charges for the…
These lectures present some topics of string phenomenology and contain two parts. In the first part, I review the possibility of lowering the string scale in the TeV region, that provides a theoretical framework for solving the mass…
Fractional strings in the spectrum of states of open strings attached to a multiply wound D-brane is explained. We first describe the fractional string states in the low-energy effective theory where the topology of multiple winding is…
We give a lightning introduction to critical string theory, including the 26-dimensional bosonic string, the 10-dimensional superstrings and heterotic strings with and without spacetime supersymmetry. We also discuss open strings and…
The first part of this report gives a very quick sketch of how string theory concepts originated and evolved during its first 25 years (1968-93). The second part presents a somewhat more detailed discussion of the highlights of the past…
The purpose of this short review is to present progresses in string theory in the recent past. There have been very important developments in our understanding of string dynamics, especially in the nonperturbative aspects. In this context,…
String theory in two-dimensional spacetime illuminates two main threads of recent development in string theory: (1) Open/closed string duality, and (2) Tachyon condensation. In two dimensions, many aspects of these phenomena can be explored…
This is a series of remedial lectures on open and unoriented strings for the heterotic string generation. The particular focus is on the interesting features that arise under T-duality---D-branes and orientifolds. The final lecture…
We define string geometry: spaces of superstrings including the interactions, their topologies, charts, and metrics. Trajectories in asymptotic processes on a space of strings reproduce the right moduli space of the super Riemann surfaces…
This thesis contains of two parts: The first part is a pedagogical introduction into the field of bosonic SFT. After discussing some general properties we expect, Witten's open SFT and Zwiebach's closed SFT are presented in detail. This…
Extending the recent work in hep-th/9803076, we consider string perturbative expansion in the presence of D-branes and orientifold planes imbedded in orbifolded space-time. In the $\alpha'\to 0$ limit the weak coupling string perturbative…
In these lecture notes for the Les Houches School on Quantum Geometry I give an introductory overview of non-perturbative aspects of topological string theory. After a short summary of the perturbative aspects, I first consider the…