Related papers: Physical States in the $W_3$ String
In open string field theory the kinetic operator mixes matter and ghost sectors, and thus the ghost structure of classical solutions is not universal. Nevertheless, we have found from numerical analysis that certain ratios of expectation…
In this paper we describe ideas about the string landscape, and how to relate it to the physics of the Standard Model of particle physics. First, we give a short status report about heterotic string compactifications. Then we focus on the…
Progress on string theory in curved spacetimes since 1992 are reviewed. After a short introduction on strings in Minkowski and curved spacetimes, we focus on strings in cosmological spacetimes. The classical behaviour of strings in FRW and…
We briefly review three aspects of string cosmology: (1) the ``stochastic'' approach to the pre-big bang scenario, (2) the presence of chaos in the generic cosmological solutions of the tree-level low-energy effective actions coming out of…
One of the main virtues of string gas cosmology is that it resolves cosmological singularities. Since the Universe can be approximated by a locally asymptotically de Sitter spacetime by the end of the inflationary era, a singularity theorem…
The topic of the review is the application of new ideas of unconventional quantum states to the physics of condensed matter, in particular of solid state, in the context of modern field theory. A comparison is made with classical papers on…
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…
I review the recent progress in providing a statistical foundation for black hole thermodynamics. In the context of string theory, one can now identify and count quantum states associated with black holes. One can also compute the analog of…
We investigate the stability against inhomogeneous perturbations and the appearance of ghost modes in Gauss-Bonnet gravitational theories with a non-minimally coupled scalar field, which can be regarded as either the dilaton or a…
There is evidence that string theory possesses a large discretuum of stable and/or metastable ground states, with zero or four supersymmetries in four dimensions. I discuss critically the nature of this evidence. Assuming this "landscape"…
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 study the properties of {\bf exact} (all level $k$) quantum coherent states in the context of string theory on a group manifold (WZWN models). Coherent states of WZWN models may help to solve the unitarity problem: Having positive norm,…
We review and develop the formalism of ghost number cohomologies, outlined in our previous work, to classify the quantum states of M-theory. We apply this formalism to the matrix formulation of M-theory to obtain NSR superstring action from…
A personal view is given of the development of string theory out of dual models, including the analysis of the structure of the physical states and the proof of the No-Ghost Theorem, the quantization of the relativistic string, and the…
String theory and supersymmetry are theoretical ideas that go beyond the standard model of particle physics and show promise for unifying all forces. After a brief introduction to supersymmetry, we discuss the prospects for its experimental…
One cannot yet point to any firm string prediction. While many approximate string ground states are known with interesting properties, we do not have any argument that one or another describes what we observe around us, and for reasons…
String theoretical ideas might be relevant for particle physics model building. Ideally one would hope to find a unified theory of all fundamental interactions. There are only few consistent string theories in D=10 or 11 space-time…
Using the differential equation approach to W-algebras, we discuss the inclusion of punctures in W-string theory. The key result is the existence of different kinds of punctures in W-strings. This is similar to the NS and R punctures…
Various properties of open strings in external constant E.M. fields are reviewed. In particular, the charged-particle pair production rate in an external electric field is evaluated, and shown to reduce to Schwinger's formula in the limit…
We present concrete solutions with accelerated expansion in string theory, requiring a small, tractable list of stress energy sources. We explain how this construction (and others in progress) evades previous no go theorems for simple…