Related papers: What is String Theory?
This book provides an introduction to string field theory (SFT). String theory is usually formulated in the worldsheet formalism, which describes a single string (first-quantization). While this approach is intuitive and could be pushed far…
Over the last few years, string theory has changed profoundly. Most importantly, novel duality relations have emerged which involve gauge theories of brane excitations on one side and various closed string backgrounds on the other. In this…
This is a brief overview on the current status of string theory for non-specialists. The purpose is to give an aspect on the nature of string theory as a unified theory of all interactions including quantum gravity and to discuss future…
It is argued that string theory may pose new conceptual issues for the history and philosophy of science.
A very quick introduction to the bosonic string, conformal field theory, the superstring and geometry. No background in quantum field theory is assumed and the omissions are vast. Based on four lectures at the 2024 Physical Mathematics of…
In this review article, we review the recent developments in constructing string field theories that have been proposed, all of which correctly reproduce the correlation functions of two-dimensional string theory. These include: (a) free…
This is the written version of a set of introductory lectures on string theory.
String theory is changing the relationship between mathematics and physics. The central role is played by the phenomenon of duality, which is intrinsic to quantum physics and abundant in string theory.
This article contains a short review of the current status of string theory.
String theory is at the moment the only advanced approach to a unification of all interactions, including gravity. But, in spite of the more than thirty years of its existence, it does not make any empirically testable predictions, and it…
We will show how the study of randomly triangulated surfaces merges with the study of open/closed string dualities. In particular we will discuss the Conformal Field Theory which arises in the open string sector and its implications.
The worldsheet of the string theory, which consisting of 26 free scalar fields in Minkowski space, is two dimensional conformal field theory. If we denote the two dimension conformal field theory by elliptic curve and denote the partition…
These lectures consisted of an elementary introduction to conformal field theory, with some applications to statistical mechanical systems, and fewer to string theory. Contents: 1. Conformal theories in d dimensions 2. Conformal theories in…
Is string theory relevant to the black hole information problem? This is an attempt to clarify some of the issues involved. Presented at Strings '95.
In these proceedings for the First School on Field Theory and Gravitation (Vit\'oria, Brasil), a brief introduction is given to superstring theory and its duality symmetries. This introduction is intended for beginning graduate students…
A comprehensive introduction to two-dimensional conformal field theory is given.
String theory has been the dominating research field in theoretical physics during the last decades. Despite the considerable time elapse, no new testable predictions have been derived by string theorists and it is understandable that…
We study general properties of the classical solutions in non-polynomial closed string field theory and their relationship with two dimensional conformal field theories. In particular we discuss how different conformal field theories which…
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…