Entry requirements

120 credits in science/engineering. Participation in Conformal Field Theory and String Theory. That course may also be taken in parallel. Proficiency in English equivalent to the Swedish upper secondary course English 6.

Learning outcomes

On completion of the course, the student should be able to:​

• explain basic ideas of the superstring
• explain differences and similarities between world-sheet versus target-space supersymmetry
• apply T-duality to open and closed superstrings
• describe the five perturbative superstring theories and account for their web of dualities
• explain foundations, applications and tests of the anti-de Sitters and conformal field theory (AdS/CFT) correspondence
• explain the physical implications of string-compactification geometries
• outline a way to obtain the particles of the Standard Model of particle physics from string theory
• explain how string interactions arise from the theory and how they can be used to test dualities
• explain the implications of modular invariance on the worldsheet and in target space

Content

Superstrings in the Ramond-Neveu-Schwarz formulation. Basics of supersymmetry in two, four and ten dimensions. Compact spacetime dimensions, T-duality and D-branes. Heterotic strings. The web of string dualities. AdS/CFT correspondence. Calabi-Yau compactifications and mirror symmetry. Intersecting D-brane models. String interactions and S-duality.

Instruction

Lectures.

Assessment

Hand-in assignment on circle compactifications of bosonic strings and on RNS-superstrings (3hp). Other hand-in assignments (7hp).