Related papers: Coming to Terms with Strongly Coupled Strings

These lectures present some topics of string phenomenology and contain two parts. In the first part, I review the possibility of lowering the string scale in the TeV region, that provides a theoretical framework for solving the mass…

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…

Recent developments in string theory have important implications for cosmology. Topics discussed here are inflation, the cosmological constant, smoothing of cosmological singularities, and dark matter from parallel universes. Talk presented…

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…

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…

We review the status of duality symmetries in superstring theories. These discrete symmetries mark the striking differences between theories of pointlike objects and theories of extended objects. They prove to be very helpful in…

This is a brief review of the current state of knowledge on "little string theories", which are non-gravitational theories having several string-like properties. We focus on the six dimensional maximally supersymmetric "little string…

Thus far, in spite of many interesting developments, the overall progress towards a systematic study and classification of various 'strange' metallic states of matter has been rather limited. To that end, it was argued that a recent…

We give some examples in which neglecting the interactions between particles or truncating the description of a black hole to the spherically symmetric mode leads to unphysical results. The restoration of the interactions and higher angular…

Beginning with a review of the arguments leading to the so-called c=1 barrier in the continuum formulation of noncritical string theory, the pathology is then exhibited in a discretized version of the theory, formulated through dynamical…

Supersymmetric states in M-theory are mapped after compactification to perturbatively non-supersymmetric states in type IIA string theory, with the supersymmetric parts being encoded in the non-perturbative section of the string theory. An…

We show a possibility that the matrix models recently proposed to explain (almost) all the physics of M-theory may include the superstring theories that we know perturbatively. The ``1st quantized'' physical system of one IIA string seems…

Holomorphy of the superpotential and of the coefficient of the gauge kinetic terms in supersymmetric theories lead to powerful results. They are the underlying conceptual reason for the important non-renormalization theorems. They also…

In these lectures we review the properties of holomorphic couplings in the effective action of four-dimensional N=1 and N=2 closed string vacua. We briefly outline their role in establishing a duality among (classes of) different string…

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…

The weakly coupled vacuum of $E_8\otimes E_8$ heterotic string theory remains an attractive scenario for particle physics. The particle spectrum and the issue of dilaton stabilization are reviewed. A specific model for hidden sector…

I discuss several aspects of strings as unified theories. After recalling the difficulties of the simplest supersymmetric grand unification schemes I emphasize the distinct features of string unification. An important role in constraining…

The observation of a scalar resonance at the LHC, compatible with perturbative electroweak symmetry breaking, reinforces the Standard Model parameterisation of all subatomic data. The logarithmic evolution of the SM gauge and matter…

We review for non-experts possible phenomenological scenari in String Theory. In particular we focus on vacuum configurations with intersecting and/or magnetized unoriented D-branes. We will show how a TeV scale tension may be compatible…

Recent developments in string duality suggest that the string scale may not be irrevocably tied to the Planck scale. Two explicit but unrealistic examples are described where the ratio of the string scale to the Planck scale is arbitrarily…