Related papers: Fields, Strings and Branes
We discuss the relation between supersymmetric gauge theory of branes and supergravity; as it was discovered in D-brane physics, and as it appears in Matrix theory, with emphasis on motion in curved backgrounds. We argue that gauged sigma…
We review the recent studies of tachyon condensation in string field theory. After introducing the open string field theory both for bosonic string and for superstring, we use them to examine the conjecture that the unstable configurations…
There have been many remarkable developments in our understanding of superstring theory in the past few years, a period that has been described as ``the second superstring revolution.'' Several of them are discussed here. The presentation…
These are notes from the 2003 C.I.M.E. summer school "symplectic 4-manifolds and algebraic surfaces". They cover the same material as the author's (by now ancient) Ph.D. thesis.
In this talk I review recent developments in superstring theory. In the first half of the talk I discuss some of the earlier developments in this subject. This includes a review of the status of string theory as a unified theory of gravity…
In recent years there has been some progress in understanding how one might model the interactions of branes in M-theory despite not having a fundamental perturbative description. The goal of this review is to describe different approaches…
This article briefly summarizes the motivations for -- and recent progress in -- searching for cosmological configurations within string theory, with a focus on how much we might reasonably hope to learn about fundamental physics from…
In these two lectures, delivered at the XXXVII Karpacz Winter School, February 2001, I review some applications of superspace in various topics related to string theory and M-theory. The first lecture is mainly devoted to descriptions of…
Some of the properties of string theory defined on world-sheets with boundaries are reviewed. Particular emphasis is put on the possibility of identifying string configurations (\lq D-instantons' and \lq D-branes') that give rise to stringy…
The great deal in noncommutative (NC) field theories started when it was noted that NC spaces naturally arise in string theory with a constant background magnetic field in the presence of $D$-branes. Besides their origin in string theories…
This is an invited contribution to the Special Issue of "Foundations of Physics" titled "Forty Years Of String Theory: Reflecting On the Foundations". I have been asked to assess string theory as an outsider, and to compare it with the…
These notes provide a hopefully pedagogic introduction to Born-Infeld theory and some of its uses in String/M-Theory from the perspective of some-one interested in spacetime geometry. Causality and the consequences of having both the open…
This is a non-technical talk given at the Sixth Marcel Grossman Meeting on General Relativity, Kyoto, Japan in June 1991. Some developments in string theory over the last six years are discussed together with their qualitative implications…
This is a rendering of a review talk on the state of String Theory, given at the EPS-2003 Conference, intended for a wide audience of experimental and theoretical physicists. It emphasizes general ideas rather than technical aspects.
Brane actions with chiral bosons present special challenges. Recent progress in the description of the two main examples -- the M theory five-brane and the heterotic string -- is described. Also, double dimensional reduction of the M theory…
An overview of string theory in the maximally supersymmetric plane-wave background is given, and some supersymmetric D-branes are discussed.
I review recent progress in understanding non-perturbative aspects of string theory, quantum gravity and non-commutative geometry using lattice methods.
This is an expanded version of the notes of our lectures given at the conference "Current Developments in Mathematics 2003" held at Harvard University on November 21--22, 2003. We present an overview of the main definitions, results and…
Following is a collection of lecture notes on D-branes, which may be used by the reader as preparation for applications to modern research applications such as: the AdS/CFT and other gauge theory/geometry correspondences, Matrix Theory and…
I describe our understanding of physics near the Planck length, in particular the great progress in the last four years in string theory. These are lectures presented at the 1998 SLAC Summer Institute.