Related papers: String Theory: A Theory of Unification
String theory is the leading candidate for a unified theory of the standard model and gravity. In the last few years theorists have realized that there is a unique structure underlying string theory. In this unification a prominent role is…
String Theory is a hot topic of physics and mathematics. For the former, it stands as a huge sandbox where the formulation of difficult problems can be simplified and their hard computations carried out. For the latter, it stands as a…
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…
An overview is given of the way in which the unification program of particle physics has evolved into the proposal of superstring theory as a prime candidate for unifying quantum gravity with the other forces and particles of nature. A key…
String Field Theory is a formulation of String Theory as a Quantum Field Theory in target space. It allows to tame the infrared divergences of String Theory and to approach its non-perturbative structure and background independence. This…
The aim of these lectures is to give an introduction to several topics which lie at the intersection of string theory, gravity theory and gravity phenomenology. One successively reviews: (i) the "membrane" approach to the dissipative…
We give a mathematical perspective on string compactifications. Submitted as a chapter in the Encyclopedia of Mathematical Physics.
It is hoped that these lectures will give a point of entry into that vast web of related ideas that go under the name "string theory". I start with a more or less qualitative introduction to gravity as a field theory and sketch how one…
In this article, prepared for the book "The birth of string theory", I recall the sequence of ideas which led to non-critical strings and gauge/strings duality. I also comment on some promising future directions.
We review the existence, formation and properties of cosmic strings in string theory, the wide variety of observational techniques that are being employed to detect them, and the constraints that current observations impose on string theory…
I review work developing the idea that string is a composite of point-like entities called string bits. Old and new insights this picture brings into the nature of string theory are discussed. This paper summarizes my talk presented to the…
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…
This document is an elementary introduction to string diagrams. It takes a computer science perspective: rather than using category theory as a starting point, we build on intuitions from formal language theory, treating string diagrams as…
These are my personal impressions of the environment in which string theory was born, and what the important developments affecting my work were during the hadronic string era, 1968-1974. I discuss my motivations and concerns at the time,…
There have been many remarkable developments in our understanding of superstring theory in the past few years, a period that has been described as ``the second superstring revolution.'' Several of them are discussed here. The presentation…
This essay presents a critical evaluation of the concepts of string theory and its impact on particle physics. The point of departure is a historical review of four decades of ST within the broader context of six decades of failed attempts…
The status of string theory is reviewed, and major recent developments - especially those in going beyond perturbation theory in the string theory and quantum field theory frameworks - are discussed. This analysis helps better understand…
In these lecture notes, an introduction to superstring theory is presented. Classical strings, covariant and light-cone quantization, supersymmetric strings, anomaly cancelation, compactification, T-duality, supersymmetry breaking, and…
Using a classical action associated to a point-particle in (1+1)-dimensions the classical string theory is derived. In connection with this result two aspects are clarified: First, the point particle in (1+1)-dimensions is not an ordinary…
The interplay between string theory and cosmology is very promising. Since string theory will yield a quantum theory of space-time and unify all forces of nature, it has the potential of addressing many of the conceptual problems of the…