Related papers: World-Sheet Defects, Strings, and Quark Confinemen…
Critical String Theory is by definition an $S$-matrix theory. In this sense, (quantum) gravity situations where a unitary $S$-matrix may not be a well-defined concept, as a consequence of the existence of macroscopic (global) or microscopic…
In this thesis we discuss non-perturbative phenomena emerging in gauge and in string/supergravity theories. We compute the partition function of 5D minimal supersymmetric U(1) gauge theory with extra adjoint matter in general…
Quark confinement is proposed to be a dual Meissner effect of nonAbelian kind. Important hints come from physics of strongly-coupled infrared-fixed-point theories in N=2 supersymmetric QCD, which turn into confining vacua under a small…
Recently a special vortex string was found [5] in a class of soliton vortices supported in four-dimensional Yang-Mills theories that under certain conditions can become infinitely thin and can be interpreted as a critical ten-dimensional…
The generalization of 4D confining string theory to the SU(3)-inspired case is derived. It describes string representation of the Wilson loop in the SU(3)-analogue of compact QED extended by the $\theta$-term. It is shown that although the…
We have argued previously that black holes may be represented in a D-brane approach by monopole and vortex defects in a sine-Gordon field theory model of Liouville dynamics on the world sheet. Supersymmetrizing this sine-Gordon system, we…
We investigate the properties of the QCD string in the Euclidean SU(N) pure gauge theory when the space-time dimensions transverse to it are periodic. From the point of view of an effective string theory, the string tension $\sigma$ and the…
We study non-Abelian vortex strings in four-dimensional (4D) $\mathcal{N} = 2$ supersymmetric QCD with U$(N=2)$ gauge group and $N_f=4$ flavors of quark hypermultiplets. It has been recently shown that these vortices behave as critical…
Building on our previous results, we study D-brane/string prototypes in weakly coupled (3+1)-dimensional supersymmetric field theory engineered to support (2+1)-dimensional domain walls, "non-Abelian" strings and various junctions. Our main…
We use supersymmetric localization techniques to study the low-energy dynamics of BPS vortex-strings in four-dimensional N=2 theories. We focus on theories with SU(Nc)xU(1) gauge group and Nf hypermultiplets, all in the fundamental…
We explain how perturbative string theory can be viewed as an exactly renormalizable Weyl invariant quantum mechanics in the worldsheet representation clarifying why string scattering amplitudes are both finite and unambiguously normalized…
It has been shown that non-Abelian solitonic vortex string supported in four-dimensional (4D) N=2 supersymmetric QCD (SQCD) with the U(2) gauge group and $N_f=4$ quark flavors becomes a critical superstring. This string propagates in the…
Recent results on the annulus partition function in Liouville field theory are applied to non-critical string theory, both below and above the critical dimension. Liouville gravity coupled to $c\le 1$ matter has a dual formulation as a…
As was shown recently, non-Abelian vortex strings supported in four-dimensional ${\cal N}=2$ supersymmetric QCD with the U(2) gauge group and $N_f=4$ quark multiplets (flavors) become critical superstrings. In addition to the translational…
Pure lattice gauge theories in three dimensions are widely expected to confine. A rigorous proof of confinement for three-dimensional $\mathrm{U}(1)$ lattice gauge theory with Villain action was given by G\"opfert and Mack. Beyond the…
We investigate general observables of the complex Liouville string with worldsheet boundaries. We develop a universal formalism that reduces such observables to ordinary closed string amplitudes without boundaries, applicable to any…
In typical examples of the AdS/CFT correspondence, the world-sheet theory with holes in the presence of D-branes is assumed to be equivalent in a low-energy limit to a world-sheet theory without holes for a different background such as…
We consider the (2, 0) supersymmetric theory of tensor multiplets and self-dual strings in six space-time dimensions. Space-time diffeomorphisms that leave the string world-sheet invariant appear as gauge transformations on the normal…
Tree-level scattering amplitudes in massless theories not only exhibit a simplicity entirely unexpected from Feynman diagrams, but also an underlying structure remarkably reminiscent of worldsheet theory correlators. These features can be…
In this brief, and by no means complete, review I discuss situations in string theory, in which Lorentz Invariance Violation may occur in a way consistent with world-sheet conformal invariance, thereby leading to acceptable, in principle,…