Related papers: The Master Gauge String
We review electric/magnetic duality in $N=4$ (and certain $N=2$) globally supersymmetric gauge theories and show how this duality, which relates strong to weak coupling, follows as a consequence of a string/string duality. Black holes,…
A review is given of recent research on two-dimensional gauge theories, with particular emphasis on the equivalence between these theories and certain string theories with a two-dimensional target space. Some related open problems are…
Superstring theory, and a recent extension called M theory, are leading candidates for a quantum theory that unifies gravity with the other forces. As such, they are certainly not ordinary quantum field theories. However, recent duality…
A world-sheet sigma model approach is applied to string theories dual to four-dimensional gauge theories, and semi-classical soliton solutions representing highly excited string states are identified which correspond to gauge theory…
This talk begins with some history and basic facts about string theory and its connections with strong interactions. Comparisons of stacks of Dirichlet branes with curved backgrounds produced by them are used to motivate the AdS/CFT…
I describe our understanding of physics near the planck length, in particular the great progress of the last four years in string theory. Superstring theory, and a recent extension called M theory, are leading candidates for a quantum…
We make a proposal for the string dual to the simplest large $N$ theory, the Gaussian matrix integral in the 'tHooft limit, and how this dual description emerges from double line graphs. This is a specific realisation of the general…
I discuss various aspects of background independence in the context of string theory, for which so far we have no manifestly background independent formulation. After reviewing the role of background independence in classical Einstein…
In this lecture we review some of the recent developments in string theory on an introductory and qualitative level. In particular we focus on S-T-U dualities of toroidally compactified ten-dimensional string theories and outline the…
There are many conceivable possibilities of embedding the MSSM in string theory. These proceedings describe an approach which is based on grand unification in higher dimensions. This allows one to obtain global string-derived models with…
The gauging of isometries in general sigma-models which include fermionic terms which represent the interaction of strings with background Yang-Mills fields is considered. Gauging is possible only if certain obstructions are absent. The…
We consider two-dimensional Yang-Mills theories on arbitrary Riemann surfaces. We introduce a generalized Yang-Mills action, which coincides with the ordinary one on flat surfaces but differs from it in its coupling to two-dimensional…
Using the {\em cutting and sewing} procedure we show how to get Feynman diagrams, up to two-loop order, of $\Phi^{4}$-theory with an internal SU(N) symmetry group, starting from tachyon amplitudes of the open bosonic string theory. In a…
The gauged sigma-model argument that string backgrounds related by T-dual give equivalent quantum theories is revisited, taking careful account of global considerations. The topological obstructions to gauging sigma-models give rise to…
We formulate the Exact Renormalization Group on the string world sheet for closed string backgrounds. The same techniques that were used for open strings is used here. There are some subtleties. One is that holomorphic factorization of the…
String theory and supersymmetry are theoretical ideas that go beyond the standard model of particle physics and show promise for unifying all forces. After a brief introduction to supersymmetry, we discuss the prospects for its experimental…
We consider N=1 supersymmetric U(N), SO(N), and Sp(N) gauge theories, with two-index tensor matter and added tree-level superpotential, for general breaking patterns of the gauge group. By considering the string theory realization and…
We investigate high and low energy implications of a gauge dual description of the Standard Model. The high energy electric theory features gauge dynamics involving only fermionic matter fields, while the low energy magnetic description…
It is conjectured that strongly coupled, spatially noncommutative $\mathcal{N}=4$ Yang-Mills theory has a dual description as a weakly coupled open string theory in a near critical electric field, and that this dual theory is fully…
Compactification of Type IIB superstring on an $AdS_5 \times S^5/\Gamma$ background leads to SU(N) gauge field theories with prescribed matter representations. In the 't Hooft limit of large N such theories are conformally finite. For…