Related papers: The path towards manifest background independence
We make a number of conjectures about the geometry of continuous moduli parameterizing the string landscape. In particular we conjecture that such moduli are always given by expectation value of scalar fields and that moduli spaces with…
Spin Matrix theory (SMT) limits provide a way to capture the dynamics of the AdS/CFT correspondence near BPS bounds. On the string theory side, these limits result in non-relativistic sigma models that can be interpreted as novel…
In this note we construct vertex operators in effective string theory using the simplified covariant formalism, i.e. by embedding it in the Polyakov formalism supplemented by an anomaly term, and fixing to conformal gauge. These vertex…
We construct a family of hyperbolic string vertices in the oriented open-closed string field theory, generalizing the recent result on hyperbolic closed string vertices by Costello and Zwiebach. The vertices are described by certain…
The BRST formalism has played a fundamental role in the construction of bosonic closed string backgrounds, ie. the stringy analogs of classical solutions to the field equations of general relativity. The concept of a string background has…
We consider one of the simplest time-dependent backgrounds in M-theory, describing the shrinking away of the M-theory dimension with the other spatial dimensions static. As the M-theory dimension becomes small, the situation becomes…
We consider the possible existence of gravitationally bound stringlike objects in the framework of the generalized hybrid metric-Palatini gravity theory, in which the gravitational action is represented by an arbitrary function of the Ricci…
I consider a thought experiment measuring the decoherence for quasiclassical superpositions of gravitational field. A version of the hole argument allows to prove that a covariant (background-free) theory is completely unable to define the…
We study the feasibility of level expansion and test the quartic vertex of closed string field theory by checking the flatness of the potential in marginal directions. The tests, which work out correctly, require the cancellation of two…
A target space string field theory formulation for open and closed B-model is provided by giving a Batalin-Vilkovisky quantization of the holomorphic Chern-Simons theory with off-shell gravity background. The target space expression for the…
A large class of cosmological solutions (of the Einstein equations) in string theory, in the presence of Maxwell fields, is obtained by $O(d,d)$ transformations of simple backgrounds with $d$ toroidal isometries. In all the examples in…
String theory, as a theory containing quantum gravity, is usually thought to require more dimensions of spacetime than the usual 3+1. Here I argue on physical grounds that needing extra dimensions for strings may well be an artefact of…
We demonstrate in detail how the space of two-dimensional quantum field theories can be parametrized by off-shell states of a free closed string moving in a flat background. The dynamic equation corresponding to the condition of conformal…
We propose a new formulation of the space-time interpretation of the $c=1$ matrix model. Our formulation uses the well-known leg-pole factor that relates the matrix model amplitudes to that of the 2-dimensional string theory, but includes…
Through the continuum limit of the one matrix model on the multicritical point the corresponding Schwinger-Dyson equation of temporal-gauge string field theory is derived. It agrees with that of the background independent formulation…
We explore a background-independent theory of composite gravity. The vacuum expectation value of the composite metric satisfies Einstein's equations (with corrections) as a consistency condition, and selects the vacuum spacetime. A…
Working over an algebraically closed field $k$ of characteristic $0$, we show that the motivic stable homotopy groups of the sphere spectrum can be determined entirely from the motivic homotopy groups of the $p$-completed sphere spectra and…
We show, using purely classical considerations and logical extrapolation of results belonging to point particle theories, that the metric background field in which a string propagates must satisfy an Einstein or an Einstein-like equation.…
We review recent developments in the construction of heterotic and type II string field theories and their various applications. These include systematic procedures for determining the shifts in the vacuum expectation values of fields under…
In presence of a static pair of sources, the spectrum of low-lying states of whatever confining gauge theory in D space-time dimensions is described, at large source separations, by an effective string theory. In the far infrared the latter…