Related papers: String Theory and Beyond
These are the lecture notes of the introductory String Theory course held by one of the authors for the master program of Theoretical Physics at Turin University. The world-sheet approach to String Theory is pedagogically introduced in the…
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…
We consider some questions of naturalness which arise when one considers conventional field theories in the presence of gravitation: the problem of global symmetries, the strong CP problem, and the cosmological constant problem. Using…
In this review I discuss some basic aspects of non-perturbative string theory. The topics include test of duality symmetries based on the analysis of the low energy effective action and the spectrum of BPS states, relationship between…
The study of string models including both unoriented closed strings and open strings presents a number of new features when compared to the standard case of models of oriented closed strings only. We review some basic features of the…
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…
The duality cascade, and its dual description as string theory on the warped deformed conifold, brings together several sophisticated topics, some of which are not widely known. These lectures, which contain a number of previously…
A very brief review is given of the current state of research in quantum gravity. Over the past fifteen years, two approaches have emerged as the most promising paths to a quantum theory of gravity: string theory and quantum geometry. I…
String theoretical ideas might be relevant for particle physics model building. Ideally one would hope to find a unified theory of all fundamental interactions. There are only few consistent string theories in D=10 or 11 space-time…
The first quantum string theories were developed around 1970, prior to the discovery of QCD, with the goal of producing a theory of hadrons. Basic physical requirements and mathematical consistency of the string theories known at that time…
This lecture surveys a few loosely related topics, ranging from the scarcity of quantum field theories -- and the role that this has played, and still plays, in physics -- to paradoxes involving black holes in soluble two dimensional string…
The phenomenological aspects of string theory are briefly reviewed. Emphasis is given to the status of 4D string model building, effective Lagrangians, model independent results, supersymmetry breaking and duality symmetries.
Many modern theories which try to unify gravity with the Standard Model of particle physics, as e.g. string theory, propose two key modifications to the commonly known physical theories: i) the existence of additional space dimensions; ii)…
String Theory is the result of the conjunction of three conceptually independent elements: (i) the metaphysical idea of a nomological unity of the forces, (ii) the model-theoretical paradigm of Quantum Field Theory, and (iii) the conflict…
In this semi-technical review we discuss string theory (and all that goes by that name) as a framework for a quantum theory of gravity. This is a new paradigm in theoretical physics that goes beyond relativistic quantum field theory. We…
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)…
We briefly review three aspects of string cosmology: (1) the ``stochastic'' approach to the pre-big bang scenario, (2) the presence of chaos in the generic cosmological solutions of the tree-level low-energy effective actions coming out of…
The main aim of this paper is to present an overview of the need of a new way of coping the fundamental equations of physics, see the references. Our main aim is to build a new metrics in which both time and space are included, but in some…
After a review of some topics concerning the phenomenological applications of perturbative string theory, I discuss to what extent all of it is affected by the recent developements in string dualities.
This paper analyzes the effective field theory perspective on modern physics through the lens of the quantum theory of gravitational interaction. The historical part argues that the search for a theory of quantum gravity stimulated the…