相关论文: Polyakov's String: Twenty Five Years After

These notes on string theory are based on a series of talks I gave during my graduate studies. As the talks, this introductory essay is intended for young students and non-string theory physicists.

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 is a rendering of a review talk on the state of String Theory, given at the EPS-2003 Conference, intended for a wide audience of experimental and theoretical physicists. It emphasizes general ideas rather than technical aspects.

This is a one semester course on bosonic string theory aimed at beginning graduate students. The lectures assume a working knowledge of quantum field theory and general relativity. Contents: 1. The Classical String 2. The Quantum String 3.…

The holomorphy of the superpotential along with symmetries gives very strong constraints on any stringy non-perturbative effects. This observation suggests an approach to string phenomenology. (Presented at ``Strings 95'', March 1995.

We introduce a D-dimensional Hamiltonian formalism for the study of Polyakov loop models of finite temperature gauge theories in D+1 dimensions. Polyakov loop string tensions are obtained from energy eigenstates of the Hamiltonian. For D=1,…

String theory builds on the great legacy of Yukawa and Tomonaga: New degrees of freedom and control of the UV are two important themes. This talk will give an overview of some of the progress and some of the unsolved problems that…

String theory is arguably the best candidate for a theory of quantum gravity and unified interactions. Reconciling Einstein's theory of General Relativity with Quantum Mechanics. The theory however is best understood on Minkowski and…

On the fiftieth anniversary of Yang-Mills theory, I review the contribution to its understanding by my collaborators and me. Contents: 1.Gauge Theories and Quantum Anomalies; 2.Mathematical Connections; 3. Gauge Field Dynamics other than…

This is an expanded version of my talk given at the International Conference ``Algebra and Number Theory'' dedicated to the 80th anniversary of V. E. Voskresenskii, which was held at the Samara State University in May 2007. The goal is to…

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…

We discuss possible phase factors for the S-matrix of planar N=4 gauge theory, leading to modifications at four-loop order as compared to an earlier proposal. While these result in a four-loop breakdown of perturbative BMN-scaling,…

Polyakov recently showed how to use conformal field theory to describe two-dimensional turbulence. Here we construct an infinite hierarchy of solutions, both for the constant enstrophy flux cascade, and the constant energy flux cascade. We…

Higher-point correlation functions encode the data of infinitely many 4-point correlators in conformal field theory (CFT). In this paper, we develop new tools to efficiently extract this data from multi-point crossing equations. Concretely,…

I describe our understanding of physics near the Planck length, in particular the great progress in the last four years in string theory. These are lectures presented at the 1998 SLAC Summer Institute.

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…

Obtaining explicit stability estimates in classical functional inequalities like the Sobolev inequality has been an essentially open question for 30 years, after the celebrated but non-constructive result of G. Bianchi and H. Egnell in…

We show that the proper interpretation of the cocycle operators appearing in the physical vertex operators of compactified strings is that the closed string target is non-commutative. We track down the appearance of this non-commutativity…

These are notes of a series of lectures on mirror symmetry and topological string theory given at the Mathematical Sciences Center at Tsinghua University. The N=2 superconformal algebra, its deformations and its chiral ring are reviewed. A…

This presentation is intended to give a flavour of the physics to be studied and discovered by exploiting the interface between string theory, M-theory and field theory provided by the dynamics of extended objects called `branes', and their…