相关论文: Is There A String Theory Landscape

There is evidence that string theory possesses a large discretuum of stable and/or metastable ground states, with zero or four supersymmetries in four dimensions. I discuss critically the nature of this evidence. Assuming this "landscape"…

We review recent work in which compactifications of string and M theory are constructed in which all scalar fields (moduli) are massive, and supersymmetry is broken with a small positive cosmological constant, features needed to reproduce…

Recently it has been conjectured that string theory does not allow for dS vacua or dS extrema. To scrutinize such a conjecture, it is important to study concrete string theory compactifications and spell out their assumptions and potential…

The landscape of possible four-dimensional low-energy effective theories arising from compactifications of string/M-theory seems vast. This might lead one to believe that any consistent-looking effective field theory coupled to gravity can…

String theory contains sources like orientifold planes that support higher derivative interactions. These interactions make possible static flux compactifications which are forbidden in supergravity. They can also lead to violations of the…

We provide a qualitative review of flux compactifications of string theory, focusing on broad physical implications and statistical methods of analysis.

We present a pedagogical overview of flux compactifications in string theory, from the basic ideas to the most recent developments. We concentrate on closed string fluxes in type II theories. We start by reviewing the supersymmetric flux…

Flux compactifications of string theory exhibiting the possibility of discretely tuning the cosmological constant to small values have been constructed. The highly tuned vacua in this discretuum have curvature radii which scale as large…

We discuss stability of non-supersymmetric compactification of M-theory and string theory of the form AdS * X, and their dual non-supersymmetric interacting conformal field theories. We argue some of the difficulties in controlling…

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…

In this paper, which is a revised version of the author's PhD thesis, we analyze two different applications of string theory. In the first part, we focus on four dimensional compactifications of Type II string theories preserving N=1…

We study effective potentials coming from compactifications of string theory. We show that, under mild assumptions, such potentials are bounded from below in four dimensions, giving an affirmative answer to a conjecture proposed by the…

In this note we expose some surprising connections between string theory and statistical inference. We consider a large collective of agents sweeping out a family of nearby statistical models for an M-dimensional manifold of statistical…

String theory is the prime candidate for the theory of everything. However, it must be defined in ten dimensions to be consistent. To get 4D physics, the 6 other dimensions should be curled up in a small compact manifold, this procedure is…

Some physicists hope to use string/M-theory to construct a comprehensive underlying theory of our physical world a "final theory". Can such a theory be tested? A quantum theory of gravity must be formulated in 10 dimensions, so obviously…

We study string propagation on $AdS_3$ times a compact space from an ``old fashioned'' worldsheet point of view of perturbative string theory. We derive the spacetime CFT and its Virasoro and current algebras, thus establishing the…

We demonstrate how recent developments in string field theory provide a framework to systematically study type II flux compactifications with non-trivial Ramond-Ramond profiles. We present an explicit example where physical observables can…

We find de Sitter and flat space solutions with all moduli stabilized in four dimensional supergravity theories derived from the heterotic and type II string theories, and explain how all the previously known obstacles to finding such…

We continue the study of flux tubes in confining gauge theories placed in a rigid AdS background, focusing on the three-dimensional case. Our analysis is performed in the large-radius regime, where effective string theory provides a good…

A method to solve various aspects of the strong coupling expansion of the superconformal field theory duals of AdS_5 x X geometries from first principles is proposed. The main idea is that at strong coupling the configurations that dominate…