Related papers: Superstrings, Unifications and dualities
These lectures begin by reviewing the evidence for S duality of the toroidally compactified heterotic string in 4d that was obtained in the period 1992--94. Next they review recently discovered dualities that relate all five of the 10d…
After briefly reviewing basic concepts of perturbative string theory, we explain in simple terms some of the new findings that created excitement among the string physicists. These developments include non-perturbative dualities and a…
String theory avoids the ultraviolet infinities that arise in trying to quantize gravity. It is also more predictive than conventional quantum field theory, one aspect of this being the way that it contributed to the emergence of the…
Despite the lack of experimental confirmation and of unambiguous theoretical proof, superstring theory has long been considered by many the only consistent quantized theory of gravity and the unique viable framework for the unification of…
We explain the need for a theory of quantum gravity and some general ideas about string theory, including the idea of the derivation of the Hawking Bekenstein entropy formula for extremal black holes. We then give a general description of…
The connection between Superstring theory and the low--energy world is analyzed. In particular, the soft Supersymmetry--breaking terms arising in Supergravity theories coming from Superstrings are computed. Several solutions proposed to…
This article surveys some of the highlights in the development of string theory through the first superstring revolution in 1984. The emphasis is on topics in which the author was involved, especially the observation that critical string…
Superstring theory is one current, promising attempt at unifying gravity with the other three known forces: the electromagnetic force, and the weak and strong nuclear forces. Though this is still a work in progress, much effort has been put…
Duality symmetries in supergravity theories, together with their implications for string theory, are reviewed.
This lecture presents a brief overview of the early history of string theory and supersymmetry. It describes how the S-matrix theory program for understanding the strong nuclear force evolved into superstring theory, which is a promising…
We discuss the continuum field theory limit of the physical scenario described in Ref. [1], the universe arising from the interpretation of the most general collection of logical codes in terms of distributions of units of energy along…
We discuss the possible applications of string theory for the construction of generalizations of the $SU(3)\times SU(2)\times U(1)$ standard model of strong and electroweak interactions. This includes an investigation of effective $d=4$…
During the last ten years, intriguing dualities between gauge and string theory have been found and explored. They provide a novel window on strongly coupled gauge physics, including QCD-like models. Based on a short historical review of…
These lectures intend to give a pedagogical introduction into some of the developments in string theory during the last years. They include perturbative T-duality and non perturbative S- and U-dualities, their unavoidable demand for…
String theory provides the only consistent framework so far that unifies all interactions including gravity. We discuss gravity and cosmology in string theory. Conventional notions from general relativity like geometry, topology etc. are…
String theory is at the moment the only advanced approach to a unification of all interactions, including gravity. But, in spite of the more than thirty years of its existence, it does not make any empirically testable predictions, and it…
This work is devoted to a study of some of the non-perturbative aspects of superstring theory that have come within reach thanks to dualities. The first chapter gives a non-technical zero-equation introduction to these developments intended…
The status of string theory is reviewed, and major recent developments - especially those in going beyond perturbation theory in the string theory and quantum field theory frameworks - are discussed. This analysis helps better understand…
At the present time, string theory (and its generalizations) remain relatively abstruse subjects to the particle phenomenologist and experimentalist. Yet, striking developments of the last two years offer hope that a fundamental…
Much of modern string theory research concerns AdS/CFT duality, or more generally, gauge/gravity duality. The main subjects are a) Testing and understanding such dualities by exploring how they work for systems with a lot of supersymmetry…