Related papers: Solving the strongly coupled 2D gravity III: Strin…

The Cosmological Constant Problem is re-examined from an effective field theory perspective. While the connection between gravity and particle physics has not been experimentally probed in the quantum regime, it is severely constrained by…

The quantum gravity problem of N point particles interacting with the gravitational field in 2+1 dimensions is approached working out the phase-space functional integral. The maximally slicing gauge is adopted for a non compact open…

Following an old result of Marcus and Schwarz we argue that in the heterotic string theory compactified on a seven dimensional torus, the target space duality group O(7,23;Z) and the strong-weak coupling duality transformations combine into…

The characteristic novel features of strongly coupled gravity at the special values ($C_L=7, 13, 19$) are reviewed in a simple manner using pictures as much as possible. (Notes of lectures at the 1995 Cargese Meeting Low dimensional…

We describe a topological string theory which reproduces many aspects of the 1/N expansion of SU(N) Yang-Mills theory in two spacetime dimensions in the zero coupling (A=0) limit. The string theory is a modified version of topological…

The (4,0) supermultiplet in 6 dimensions contains a 4th rank tensor gauge field with the symmetries of the Riemann tensor and is superconformal, with 32+32 supersymmetries. Dimensional reduction on a circle gives the 5D N=8 supergravity…

The properties of a string-inspired two-dimensional theory of gravity are studied. The post-Newtonian and weak-field approximations, `stellar' structure and cosmological solutions of this theory are developed. Some qualitative similarities…

Two dimensional induced quantum gravity with matter central charge $c>1$ is studied taking a careful consideration of both diffeomorphism and Weyl symmetries . It is shown that, for the gauge fixing condition $R(g)$ (scalar…

We consider a conformal system of a string and a particle defined in D=10+2 space-time dimensions. The extra time-like dimension is a gauge artifact and can be eliminated by choosing a gauge in which the SO(10,1) Lorentz symmetry is…

We construct a new class of exact and stable superstring solutions based on $N=4$ superconformal world-sheet symmetry. In a subclass of these, the full spectrum of string excitations is derived in a modular-invariant way. In the weak…

We develop techniques to compute higher loop string amplitudes for twisted $N=2$ theories with $\hat c=3$ (i.e. the critical case). An important ingredient is the discovery of an anomaly at every genus in decoupling of BRST trivial states,…

We apply the localization technique to compute the free energy on four-sphere and the circular BPS Wilson loop in the four-dimensional $\cal N$=2 superconformal $Sp(2N)$ gauge theory containing vector multiplet coupled to four…

We consider gravity coupled to a second metric in the strong coupling limit, where the second kinetic term is absent. This system belongs to the recently discussed class of models of "gravity with auxiliary fields" by Pani et al. We prove…

An infinite number of topological conformal algebras with varying central charges are explicitly shown to be present in $2d$ gravity (treated both in the conformal gauge and in the light-cone gauge) coupled to minimal matter. The central…

We derive the ten-dimensional effective action of the strongly coupled heterotic string as the low energy limit of M-theory on S^1/Z_2. In contrast to a conventional dimensional reduction, it is necessary to integrate out nontrivial heavy…

We apply the renormalized coupling constants and Virasoro constraints to derive the Itzykson-Zuber Ansatz on the form of the free energy in topological 2D gravity. We also treat the topological 1D gravity and the Hermitian one-matrix models…

We study the constraints coming from local causality requirement in various $2+1$ dimensional dynamical theories of gravity. In topologically massive gravity, with a single parity non-invariant massive degree of freedom, and in new massive…

We prove a version of the Weak Gravity Conjecture for 6d F-theory or heterotic string compactifications with 8 supercharges. This sharpens our previous analysis by including massless scalar fields. The latter are known to modify the Weak…

Open string theories can be decoupled from closed strings and gravity by scaling to the critical electric field. We propose dual descriptions for the strong coupling limit of these NCOS (Non-Commutative Open String) theories in six or fewer…

We consider theories that modify gravity at cosmological distances, and show that any such theory must exhibit a strong coupling phenomenon, or else it is either inconsistent or is already ruled out by the solar system observations. We show…