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Inhalt archiviert am 2022-12-23

Current topics in string theory

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Twenty years have passed since string theory has emerged as a viable candidate in search of a unified theory of elementary particles and their interactions; string theory reconciles general relativity with quantum mechanics and contains the main ingredients of the Standard Model, that is family replication of chiral fermions in non-Abelian representations of an appropriate gauge group. It also naturally incorporates some of the current theoretical ideas for physics beyond the Standard Model such as gauge unification, supersymmetry and extra dimensions. String theory has for a long time evolved as a set of various apparently unrelated sub-theories, each characterized by its own underlying two-dimensional model and its own characteristic effective low-energy description as a supergravity gravity theory. Ten years ago it was realized that a unification of its seemingly different constituents can be achieved via a series of perturbative and non-perturbative dualities. These developments, for which the understanding of the role played by D-branes was essential, have not only enhanced the richness and beauty of the theory, but they have also allowed for new possibilities to describing realistic physics within the framework of string theory. Some more recent developments include the holographic understanding of gauge theories in terms of a dual gravity theory and progress in string compactifications to four dimensions by the inclusion of other backgrounds than just purely gravitational. These and related developments set the stage for the current project which spans a wide net of interconnected directions of research in modern string theory. Indeed the topics to be discussed include the gravity-gauge correspondence, non-critical strings, issues in two-dimensional string theory, integrable structures in string theory, development of string perturbation techniques, topological strings, string compactifications with fluxes and string cosmology. The underlying principle of this proposal is the derivation of a variety of interesting physical phenomena in the world of elementary particle physics and gravitational theory using string theory. Our research project deals with string and field theoretic aspects of supersymmetric theories, in particular targeting at the aim to learn about field theory beyond perturbation theory and about string theory in non-trivial backgrounds. It spans a wide range of topics which demonstrates the scope of the subjects and its interconnection with many fields of mathematical physics and mathematics. The set of problems we intend to address stretches from the study of the mathematical structure of string theory to phenomenological aspects of supersymmetric field theories, such as super-QCD. We are aiming at gaining, on the one hand, a general understanding of the relation between string theory and field theory and, on the other hand, we want to use it to derive very explicit results for some interesting field theories.

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CERN
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ROUTE DE MEYRIN
GENEVA
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