Related papers: String Theory and Beyond
This is a summary of a review talk at the Trieste conference on duality symmetries in string theory, April 1997. We review some work that has been done on the relation of BPS states, automorphic forms and the geometry of the quantum ground…
I review work developing the idea that string is a composite of point-like entities called string bits. Old and new insights this picture brings into the nature of string theory are discussed. This paper summarizes my talk presented to the…
A general prediction of string unification is the existence of exotic states with fractional charges under the free unbroken Abelian generators of the underlying GUT symmetry. Such states may be long-lived due to the existence of weakly…
Following Dyson's analogy between the quantum field theory and the 19th-century chemistry-both explain how but not why-one could also establish an analogy between atomic physics and string theory. Atomic physics was needed to answer the…
With our current level of understanding, the problem of making string theory predictions is not one of "solving" the theory, but rather of trying to determine whether there are any generic expectations. Within this context, we discuss what…
We show a possibility that the matrix models recently proposed to explain (almost) all the physics of M-theory may include the superstring theories that we know perturbatively. The ``1st quantized'' physical system of one IIA string seems…
In these lectures we review the quantum physics of large Schwarzschild black holes. Hawking's information paradox, the theory of the stretched horizon and the principle of black hole complementarity are covered. We then discuss how the…
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…
This article is based on a talk given at the ``Strings'97'' conference. It discusses the search for the universality class of confining strings. The key ingredients include the loop equations, the zigzag symmetry, the non-linear…
In these notes, based on a talk given at the Rencontres de Moriond, I give a simple introduction to the tremendous progress that has been made during the last few years towards the understanding of strong-coupling phenomena in quantum gauge…
Grand Unification of all forces has been a well motivated paradigm for particle physics. This subject has been recently revisited in the context of string theory, leading to a geometric reformulation of the idea of unification of forces.…
We argue that string theory should have a formulation for which stability and causality are evident. Rather than regard strings as fundamental objects, we suggest they should be regarded as composite systems of more fundamental point-like…
Using a classical action associated to a point-particle in (1+1)-dimensions the classical string theory is derived. In connection with this result two aspects are clarified: First, the point particle in (1+1)-dimensions is not an ordinary…
This essay presents a critical evaluation of the concepts of string theory and its impact on particle physics. The point of departure is a historical review of four decades of ST within the broader context of six decades of failed attempts…
The first lecture gives a colloquium-level overview of string theory and M-theory. The second lecture surveys various attempts to construct a viable model of particle physics. A recently proposed approach, based on F-theory, is emphasized.
The dominance of string theory in the research landscape of quantum gravity physics (despite any direct experimental evidence) can, I think, be justified in a variety of ways. Here I focus on an argument from mathematical fertility, broadly…
With the advent of the LHC and the continuing influx of cosmological data, phenomenological aspects of string theory have received renewed attention in recent years and many problems have been properly incorporated in this framework. In…
We derive the universal threshold corrections in heterotic string theory including a continuous Wilson line. Unification of gauge and gravitational couplings is shown to be possible even within perturbative string theory. The relative…
String theory is the most promising candidate for the theory unifying all interactions including gravity. It has an extremely difficult dynamics. Therefore, it is useful to study some its simplifications. One of them is non-critical string…
Much of the recent progress in String Theory can be traced to a precise strategy: a careful study of the few models known since the beginnings of the subject, and the abstraction from them of basic properties that one would like to demand…