Related papers: Three-Dimensional Gravity and String Ghosts
We present a detailed investigation of scattering processes in $W_3$ string theory. We discover further physical states with continuous momentum, which involve excitations of the ghosts as well as the matter, and use them to gain a better…
It has long been understood that certain theories of ghost free massive gravity and their multi-graviton extensions can be thought of as arising from a higher dimensional theory of gravity, upon discretising the extra dimension. However,…
We give a complete proof of local background independence of the classical master action for closed strings by constructing explicitly, for any two nearby conformal theories in a CFT theory space, a symplectic diffeomorphism between their…
The well known N=2 string theory describes self-dual gravity, as was shown by Ooguri and Vafa sometime ago. In search of a variant of this theory which would describe self-dual supergravity in 2+2 dimensions, we have constructed two new N=2…
String theory can (in principle) describe gravity at all curvature scales, and can be applied to cosmology to look back in time beyond the Planck epoch. The duality symmetries of string theory suggest a cosmological picture in which the…
Theories which contain ghost fields are considered to be invalid. It is assumed that for such theories the energy is unbounded from below, and the theory will be unstable, allowing the creation of particle pairs with arbitrarily large…
In this work are consider several topics in the Topological Membrane (TM) approach to string theory. The string dynamics is generated from the bulk physics, namely from the 3D Topologically Massive Gauge Theory (TMGT) and Topologically…
We suggest a conformally invariant generalization of string theory to higher-dimensional objects. As such a model, we consider a conformally invariant $\sigma$ model. For this theory, the Hamiltonian formalism is constructed, and the full…
If string theory is correct, then our observable Universe may be a 3-dimensional "brane" embedded in a higher-dimensional spacetime. This theoretical scenario should be tested via the state-of-the-art in gravitational experiments -- the…
I present a new class of topological string theories, and discuss them in two dimensions as candidates for the string description of large-$N$ QCD. The starting point is a new class of topological sigma models, whose path integral is…
The quantum theory of a massless spin two particle is strongly constrained by diffeomorphism invariance, which is in turn implied by unitarity. We explicitly exhibit the space-time diffeomorphism algebra of string theory, realizing it in…
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…
A theory of gravitation in 4D is presented with strings used in the material action in $U_4$ spacetime. It is shown that the string naturally gives rise to torsion. It is also shown that the equation of motion a string follows from the…
String geometry theory is one of the candidates of the non-perturbative formulation of string theory. In arXiv:1709.03506, the perturbative string theory is reproduced from a string geometry model coupled with a $u(1)$ gauge field on string…
In six dimensions, cancellation of gauge, gravitational, and mixed anomalies strongly constrains the set of quantum field theories which can be coupled consistently to gravity. We show that for some classes of six-dimensional supersymmetric…
We consider the effects on cosmology of higher-derivative modifications of (effective) gravity that make it asymptotically free without introducing ghosts. The weakening of gravity at short distances allows pressure to prevent the…
We derive several new solutions in three-dimensional stringy gravity. The solutions are obtained with the help of string duality transformations. They represent stationary configurations with horizons, and are surrounded by (quasi)…
In the first order formalism of gravitational theories, the spacetime connection is considered as an independent variable to vary together with the metric. However, the metric still generates its Levi-Civita connection that turns out to…
The strong coupling limit of a quantum system is in general quite complicated, but in some cases a great simplification occurs: the strongly coupled limit is equivalent to the weakly coupled limit of some other system. In string theory…
A set of observables is described for the topological quantum field theory which describes quantum gravity in three space-time dimensions with positive signature and positive cosmological constant. The simplest examples measure the…