# Tag Info

## Hot answers tagged string-theory

4

Right now, when people talk of string theory, strings are the fundamental objects -- they aren't made up of anything. So they have an intrinsic property of energy, and energy per unit length corresponds to the string's tension.

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If you have another model, then use it to generate a set of predictions, and let's compare those to the predictions we get in the world we see. If you think there's some ether filling the universe, then write down some properties it has, and make some predictions with those properties. Talking in vague generalities will only lead you down a rabbit hole of ...

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The number of gauge bosons is restricted by symmetry: a given theory with a certain gauge invariance admits as many gauge bosons as there are generators of the corresponding gauge group. For example, there is one generator for $\mathrm{U}(1)$, resulting in the existence of a photon. $\mathrm{SU}(3)$ admits eight generators, which yield eight gluons. This is ...

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A theory with N=2 supersymmetry, where particles have two superpartners, has mirror symmetry built in. Nir Polonsky wrote some papers about an N=2 extension of the standard model (e.g.). The main problem for such a theory are the chiral Yukawa interactions between fermions and the Higgs field, which give fermions their mass in the SM. The mirror symmetry of ...

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Analyzing the spectrum of the strings, one finds that it contains $N^2$ massless vector states, which is precisely the number of gauge fields corresponding to a $U(N)$ group. Note that this is only true for massless oriented open strings; the unoriented case yields $SO(N)$ or $Sp(N)$. As is described in the same chapter of the book, open string states can ...

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When you try writing a quantu, theory of strings, you get supergravity in the classical limit. Branes are just solitonic solutions to those supergravity theories. You can classify string/brane theories based on the type of SUGRA theory you get in the classical limit. That gives you four kinds in (9+1)dim and M-theory in (10+1)dim, all related by various ...

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I will not go into explaining what dimensions actually are, but as can be found out for example by reading the respective Wikipedia article, the number of dimensions of a space(-time) coincides with the minimal number of coordinates needed to specify a point. The directions you refer to do not coincide with dimensions as they are generally understood. To ...

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Two-dimensional surfaces are the Feynman diagrams of string theory. In quantum field theory one sums over one dimensional objects in order to calculate quantities like scattering cross sections or decay rates. This is due to the fact that in this framework, particles are represented as zero dimensional objects, i.e. their world lines are points. In ...

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There are two things that define a particle physics model (at low energies). The first one is the gauge group G we want the model to be symmetric under. For the Standard Model (SM) we set this to $G=SU(3)\times SU(2)\times U(1)$ (for good experimental reasons!). This will uniquely determine the number of gauge bosons needed to make the model consistent. The ...

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(edit: note that I was responding here to an earlier version of the question which was somewhat different) I think aspects of this question are a bit too broad and philosophical--asking "How to explain all the mathematical structure that arises in string theory?" reminds me of Wigner's essay puzzling about the question of "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of ...

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