Related papers: String duality, automorphic forms, and generalized…
In this set of lectures I review recent developments in string theory emphasizing their non-perturbative aspects and their recently discovered duality symmetries. The goal of the lectures is to make the recent exciting developments in…
This thesis discusses various aspects of duality in quantum field theory and string theory. In the first part we consider duality in topological quantum field theories, concentrating on the Donaldson and Seiberg-Witten theories as (dual)…
This is a set of lectures given at the 99' Cargese Summer School: Particle Physics : Ideas and Recent Developments. They contain a pedestrian exposition of recent theoretical progress in non-perturbative field theory and string theory based…
Considering SO(32) heterotic string theory compactified on a torus of dimension 4 and less, stability of non-supersymmetric states is studied. A non-supersymmetric state with robust stability is constructed, and its exact stability is…
We propose that generalized symmetries in some string-constructed QFTs are given by K-theory. We thus have \textit{even-form} and \textit{odd-form} symmetries determined by $K_N(\partial X)$, the twisted K-theory as D-brane charges on the…
This is a general introduction to duality in field theories. The existence and breaking of global symmetries is used as a guideline to systematically prove duality between different field theories. Systems discussed include abelian and…
Configurations of two or more branes wrapping different homology cycles of space-time are considered and the amount of supersymmetry preserved is analysed, generalising the analysis of multiple branes in flat space. For K3…
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…
We discuss the generalization of recently discovered BPS configurations, corresponding to the planar string networks, to non-planar ones by considering the U-duality symmetry of type II string theory in various dimensions. As an explicit…
Duality symmetries for strings moving in non-trivial spacetime backgrounds are analysed. It is shown that, for backgrounds generated from compact WZW and coset models, such duality symmetries are exact to all orders in string perturbation…
We study the BPS black hole solutions of the (truncated) action for heterotic string theory compactified on a six-torus. The O(3,Z) duality symmetry of the theory, together with the bound state interpretation of extreme black holes, is used…
We give a unified description of all BPS states of M-theory compactified on $T^5$ in terms of the five-brane. We compute the mass spectrum and degeneracies and find that the $SO(5,5,Z)$ U-duality symmetry naturally arises as a T-duality by…
We reconsider some older constructions of T-duality, based on automorphisms of the worldsheet operator algebra, in a modern context. It has been long known that at special points in the moduli space of torus compactifications, the target…
One of the main topics in the modern String Theory are the AdS/CFT dualities. Proving such conjectures is extremely difficult since the gauge and string theory perturbative regimes do not overlap. In this perspective, the discovery of…
In this lecture we review some of the recent developments in string theory on an introductory and qualitative level. In particular we focus on S-T-U dualities of toroidally compactified ten-dimensional string theories and outline the…
We argue that duality symmetries can be manifestly realised when theories with these symmetries are quantised using phase space quantum theory. In particular, using background fields and phase space quantum theory, we quantise the bosonic…
Many string theories contain states which are not BPS, but are stable due to charge conservation. In many cases the description of these states in the strong coupling limit remains unknown despite the existence of a weakly coupled dual…
Existence of SL(2,Z) duality in toroidally compactified heterotic string theory (or in the N=4 supersymmetric gauge theories), that includes the strong weak coupling duality transformation, implies the existence of certain supersymmetric…
Duality transformations with respect to rotational isometries relate supersymmetric with non-supersymmetric backgrounds in string theory. We find that non-local world-sheet effects have to be taken into account in order to restore…
Are duality transformations symmetries of string theory? For AdS space-time the answer is no for generic asymptotic values of the moduli, since the duality symmetry is broken explicitly in the dual conformal field theory. In contrast, in…