Related papers: String Theory Symmetries
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 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…
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…
String theories naturally exhibit dualities that lead to hidden symmetries in the low-energy effective description, which have been used to great effect to generate supergravity solutions. We review recent progress in using hidden…
The doubled formulation of string theory, which is T-duality covariant and enlarges spacetime with extra coordinates conjugate to winding number, is reformulated and its geometric and topological features examined. It is used to formulate…
When the gauge groups of the two heterotic string theories are broken, over tori, to their "SO(16)x SO(16)" subgroups, the winding modes correspond to representations which are spinorial with respect to those subgroups. Globally, the two…
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…
Recent work has made clear that we have far more control over the dynamics of supersymmetric than non-supersymmetric theories. Here, I discuss some issues in dynamical supersymmetry breaking both in ordinary field theory and in string…
This is the written version of a short talk given at the University of Leipzig in December 1998. It reviews some general aspects of string theory from the viewpoint of the search for an unifying theory. Here, special emphasis lies on the…
An infinite number of distinct $d=1$ matrix models reproduce the perturbation theory of $d=2$ string theory. Due to constraints of causality, however, we argue that none of the existing constructions gives a consistent nonperturbative…
String theory has already motivated, suggested, and sometimes well-nigh proved a number of interesting and sometimes unexpected mathematical results, such as mirror symmetry. A careful examination of the behavior of string propagation on…
This presentation is intended to give a flavour of the physics to be studied and discovered by exploiting the interface between string theory, M-theory and field theory provided by the dynamics of extended objects called `branes', and their…
We discuss some aspects of the relation between dualities and gauge symmetries. Both of these ideas are of course multi-faceted, and we confine ourselves to making two points. Both points are about dualities in string theory, and both have…
A strong-weak coupling duality symmetry of the string equations of motion has been suggested in the literature. This symmetry implies that vacua occur in pairs. Since the coupling constant is a dynamical variable in string theory, tunneling…
In this article I first give an abbreviated history of string theory and then describe the recently-conjectured field-string duality. This suggests a class of nonsupersymmetric gauge theories which are conformal (CGT) to leading order of…
N=(2,1) heterotic string theory provides clues about hidden structure in M-theory related to string duality; in effect it geometrizes some aspects of duality. The program whereby one may deduce this hidden structure is outlined, together…
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…
The first part is an introduction to conformal field theory and string perturbation theory. The second part deals with the search for a deeper answer to the question posed in the title. Contents: 1. Conformal Field Theory 2. String Theory…
In these lecture proceedings, we describe some of the fundamental mathematical concepts that underlie supersymmetric string theory and field theory, and their role in describing and testing dualities. In particular, we provide a pedagogical…
Via T-duality a theory of open strings on a D1-brane wrapped along a cycle of slanted torus is described by a U(1) gauge theory on a D2-brane in the B-field background. It is also known that there is another dual description of the D1-brane…