A class of theories that attempt to explain all existing particles (including force carriers) as vibrational modes of one-dimensional objects.

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12
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203 views

Anomalous target space diffeomorphisms for one-loop world-line integrals

The Schwinger effect can be calculated in the world-line formalism by coupling the particle to the target space potential $A$. My question relates to how this calculation might extend to computing ...
10
votes
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278 views

A dictionary of string - standard physics correspondences

Motivated by the (for me very useful) remark ''Standard model generations in string theory are the Euler number of the Calabi Yau, and it is actually reasonably doable to get 4,6,8, or 3 ...
9
votes
0answers
213 views

Derivation of KLT relations

The KLT relations (Kawai, Lewellen, Tye) relate a closed string amplitude to a product of open ones. While I get the physics behind this I don't really understand the derivation in the original paper ...
8
votes
0answers
121 views

Compactifying on a circle and the exchange of R and NS sectors

I've noticed a general phenomenon in compactifying on a circle where if you start with, say, an NS field, then the KK fields with an index along the circle will be in the R sector, and those without ...
8
votes
0answers
121 views

Intuitive sketch of the correspondence of a string theory to its limiting quantum field theory

I'm looking for an intuitive sketch of how one shows the correspondence of string theory to a certain QFT. My best guess is that one calculates the scattering amplitudes in the string theory as a ...
8
votes
0answers
36 views

Minimal strings and topological strings

In http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0206255 Dijkgraaf and Vafa showed that the closed string partition function of the topological B-model on a Calabi-Yau of the form $uv-H(x,y)=0$ coincides with the free ...
8
votes
0answers
48 views

Super Lie-infinity algebra of closed superstring field theory?

Bosonic closed string field theory is famously governed by a Lie n-algebra for $n = \infty$ whose $k$-ary bracket is given by the genus-0 (k+1)-point function in the BRST complex of the string. One ...
7
votes
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352 views

About defining “baryons” and “mesons”

I want to understand the proof of the claims (of the construction as well as of its uniqueness) of gauge singlet states given around equation 2.13 (page 10) of this paper. Also does the listing of ...
7
votes
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86 views

gauss-bonnet gravity constraints from string theory

recently there has been advances in observational constraints of gravity theories that contains scalars coupled to the gauss-bonnet topological term: http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.0175 ...
7
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0answers
53 views

Quantum statistics of branes

Quantum statistics of particles (bosons, fermions, anyons) arises due to the possible topologies of curves in D-dimensional spacetime winding around each other What happens if we replace particles by ...
6
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0answers
94 views

Is it believed that all UV completions have “Maldacena duals”?

I have heard occasional rumors that effective field theories have gravity duals. For example, I've been told that UV momentum cutoffs in N=4 SYM become finite radii in AdS. I've heard speculations ...
6
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46 views

Pohlmeyer reduction of string theory for flat and AdS spaces

The definition of Pohlmeyer invariants in flat-space (as per eq-2.16 in Urs Schreiber's DDF and Pohlmeyer invariants of (super)string) is the following: $ Z^{\mu_1...\mu_N} (\mathcal{P}) = ...
6
votes
0answers
49 views

String landscape in different dimensions

For D = 11 large (uncompactified) spacetime dimensions, the only "string theory" vacuum is M-theory For D = 10, there are 5 vacua. Or maybe it's more correct to say 4, since type I is S-dual to ...
5
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57 views

Why do we identify symmetric 2nd rank tensors with spin-2 particles in string theory?

I am going through Tong's lecture notes on String Theory and came across the following irrep decomposition (Chap 2, p.43) of the bosonic string first excited states: $$\text{traceless symmetric} ...
5
votes
0answers
101 views

Has hep-th/0312070 forgotten to fix $s_{0} = 1/2$ for the fermionic states in the second table on page 52?

Link to the original paper: The Gauge/String Correspondence Towards Realistic Gauge Theories (arXiv paper) On page 52 we see that, for a theory of Dp-branes placed at an orbifold (orbifold = ...
5
votes
0answers
113 views

Are QFT solitons expected to represent standard model particles? Or strings?

Is work on solitons in QFT's focused on finding solutions that could represent the fundamental particles of the Standard Model, or is the work focused on finding particles Beyond The Standard Model? ...
5
votes
0answers
94 views

Master Field Large N limit

I would like to ask a question about the so-called ''Master Field''. As far as I understand, this represents a classical configuration in the large n limit (saddle point solution) but there is no ...
5
votes
0answers
137 views

An use of the Schwinger-Dyson equation

I was confused as to how the equation 10 on page 7 or equation 21 on page 8 of this paper http://arxiv.org/abs/1211.1866 was derived. Can someone explain from where does this come and what do the ...
5
votes
0answers
51 views

paper about black branes and implications to 4d black holes

This paper makes a case for piezoelectric response (electric dipole moment under mechanical oscillations) of black branes. This paper does not make an implication of their results for 4D black holes ...
5
votes
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68 views

R charge of the chiral multiplet in $2+1$ dimensions

These are two examples that I am puzzled by, One can see in this paper on page 16 that for ${\cal N} =2$ theory on $2+1$ the R-charge of the $\phi$ and the $\psi$ is determined to be $\frac{1}{2}$ ...
5
votes
0answers
149 views

Why Brown York stress tensor == dual field theory's energy momentum tensor?

From the AdS/CFT dictionary, how to argue that the Brown York stress tensor for a gravity system near the boundary is exactly the same as the energy momentum tensor of the dual field theory? In the ...
5
votes
0answers
41 views

Why Are Even and Odd Regge Trajectories Degenerate?

The Gribov-Froissart projection treats even angular momentum differently from odd angular momentum. But in QCD, I believe that the odd trajectories interpolate the even trajectories--- the two ...
5
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140 views

Chiral fermions from torsion flux in M-theory?

Witten's 1981 paper "Search for a realistic Kaluza-Klein theory" is frequently cited for its observation that, in a compactification of d=11 supergravity on a manifold with SU(3) x SU(2) x U(1) ...
4
votes
0answers
58 views

Dimensional transmutation in Gross-Neveu vs others

Firstly I don't know how generic is dimensional transmutation and if it has any general model independent definition. Is dimensional transmutation in Gross-Neveau somehow fundamentally different ...
4
votes
0answers
45 views

Animating the Bosonic String

I am interested in studying the classical solutions to the Bosonic string in flat 3+1 dim. spacetime by having them rendered a moving picture on a computer. This is partly for fun, and partly to ...
4
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130 views

Implications of Unruh-inertia to theories of gravity

If it turns out to be true that the galaxy rotation curves can be explained away by Unruh modes that become greater than the Hubble scale at accelerations around $10^{-10} m/s^2$ as proposed in here, ...
4
votes
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164 views

The ${\cal N} = 3$ Chern-Simons matter lagrangian

This question is sort of a continuation of this previous question of mine. I would like to know of some further details about the Lagrangian discussed in this paper in equation 2.8 (page 7) and in ...
4
votes
0answers
85 views

Calabi Yau compactification based on U(1) charges

In Green-Schwarz-Witten Volume 2, chapter 15, it is argued (roughly) that we need 6-dimensional manifolds of $SU(3)$ holonomy in order to receive 1 covariantly constant spinor field. And it turns out ...
4
votes
0answers
67 views

Defects in 3+1 TFTs/2+1 CFTs

I would like to know of good pedagogic references to learn about the notion of "defects" in TFTs and CFTs. I am specially interested in 3+1 TFTs (.and probably about their relation to 2+1 CFTs..) In ...
4
votes
0answers
25 views

What is the state-of-the-art on spacelike singularities in string theory?

What lessons do we have from string theory regarding the fate of singularities in general relativity? What happens to black hole singularities? What happens to cosmological singularities? Which ...
4
votes
0answers
142 views

Is string theory over a time varying background a conformal field theory to all orders in perturbation theory?

When computing the first order perturbative corrections to string theory over a curved background, we find the background has to be Ricci-flat if the dilaton is constant and we have no fluxes. Such is ...
3
votes
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96 views

Holonomy twisting

There is Witten's topological twist of standard SUSY QFTs with enough SUSY into Witten-type TQFTs. What is a holonomy twist?
3
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66 views

What is kappa symmetry?

On page 180 David McMohan explains that to obtain a (spacetime) supersymmetric action for a GS superstring one has to add to the bosonic part $$ S_B = -\frac{1}{2\pi}\int d^2 \sigma ...
3
votes
0answers
50 views

Does the ensemble of effective Lagrangians in the String theory landscape mostly include gauge theories?

String theory false vacua can be described by effective Lagrangians at low energy. Is there generally a correspondence between these effective Lagrangians and SU(N) gauge theories? Or do the effective ...
3
votes
0answers
54 views

Expectation of 2-form field $B_{MN}$ in string theory

In the context of string theory, in particular when we're dealing with a low energy effective action, if we have an effective action of the form: $$S_{eff} \sim S^{(0)} + \alpha S^{(1)} + (\alpha)^2 ...
3
votes
0answers
124 views

Inclusion of information about external particles to calculate scattering amplitudes

In this (schematic) equation to calculate the scattering amplitude A by integrating over all possible world sheets and lifetimes of the bound states $$ A = \int\limits_{\rm{life time}} d\tau ...
3
votes
0answers
116 views

Mass of a superstring between two branes?

A open bosonic string between two parallel branes seems to obey formulae such as $M^2 = \big((n + {\theta_i - \theta_j \over 2 \pi}) {R' \over \alpha'}\big)^2 + {N-1 \over \alpha'} $ So that the ...
3
votes
0answers
258 views

How do the Einstein's equations come out of string theory?

The classical theory of spacetime geometry that we call gravity consists of the Einstein equation, which relates the curvature of spacetime to the distribution of matter and energy in spacetime. for ...
3
votes
0answers
116 views

Dual Resonance Model: Fermions

I am going through Ramond's 1971 paper Dual Theory for Free Fermions Phys Rev D3 10, 2415 where he first attempts to introduce fermions into the conventional dual resonance model. I get the 'gist' of ...
3
votes
0answers
146 views

Some more questions on conformal spinors of $SO(n,2)$

This is somewhat of a continuation of my previous question. I had stated there that a conformal spinor ($V$) of $SO(n,2)$ can be created by taking a direct sum of two $SO(n-1,1)$ spinors $Q$ and $S$ ...
3
votes
0answers
60 views

Relating the deformation of Calabi-Yau metrics and the conformal quantum field theories

(v2) As I read e.g. in this question, the nice holonomy group features of Calabi-Yau manifolds are valuable regarding supersymmetry (I suspect because it's a symmetry involving the target manifold, ...
3
votes
0answers
130 views

Central charge at the fixed point of the ${\cal N}=2$ Landau-Ginzburg theory in $1+1$ dimensions

Let me first believe that the ${\cal N}=2$ Landau-Ginzburg theory does in the IR flow to a non-trivial fixed point and that if the potential is of the form $\Phi ^k$ then the central charge of the CFT ...
3
votes
0answers
71 views

Pohlmeyer reduction of string theory for flat- and AdS- spaces

The definition of Pohlmeyer invariants in flat-space (as per eq-2.16 in Urs Schreiber's DDF and Pohlmeyer invariants of (super)string) is the following: $ Z^{\mu_1...\mu_N} (\mathcal{P}) = ...
3
votes
0answers
208 views

The implications of the holographic principle on string theory S-matrices

The S-matrix of superstring theory will have finitely many massive particles which decouple in the asymptotic future/past and massless particles like gravitons, photons and dilatons. Typically, there ...
3
votes
0answers
178 views

If D-branes are the same as p-branes, and p-branes open out to “another universe”, why is the other universe invisible in D-branes?

Related to my other misguided question, D-branes are equivalent to p-branes. D-branes are described by a sheet in topologically trivial spacetime. p-branes are extremal black branes. They have an ...
2
votes
0answers
50 views

About deriving the multi-trace index in terms of the single-trace index

This question is in reference to this paper Combining their equations 5.2, 5.3, 5.6 and 5.7 one seems to be looking at the integral/partition function, $Z(x) = \prod_{n=1}^{n =\infty}\left [ \int ...
2
votes
0answers
50 views

Mass spectrum of Type I string theory

I understand that the massless fields of the Type I string theory are the described by: [\begin{array}{*{20}{c}} {{\rm{Sector}}}&{{\rm{Massless fields}}}\\ {{\rm{R - R}}}&{{C_0}}\\ {{\rm{NS - ...
2
votes
0answers
40 views

Construction of the supergravity side explicitly in gauge/gravity dualities

Although the motivation of this question comes from the AdS/CFT correspondence, it actually is related to a more general principle of gauge/gravity duality. We know from Maldacena's conjecture that a ...
2
votes
0answers
28 views

Is there a critical order of the Abelian gauge theory in (2+1)D

In (2+1)D spacetime, it is known that the $U(1)$ gauge theory is always confined (according to Polyakov), while the $\mathbb{Z}_2$ gauge theory can support a deconfined phase. Now consider a generic ...
2
votes
0answers
26 views

``integrated vertex operators" in 1-loop open/closed bosonic string amplitude

This question is in reference to the first ~15 minutes of this String Theory lecture by Prof.Shiraz Minwalla, http://theory.tifr.res.in/Videos/strings28_24sep08.mp4 Can one give a reference ...

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