Strings, Branes and Dualities
By: edited by Laurent Baulieu, Philippe Francesco, Michael Douglas, Vladimir Kazakov, Marco Picco, Paul Windey
Contributors: Francesco, Philippe; Douglas, Michael; Kazakov, Vladimir; Picco, Marco; Windey, Paul
Series: NATO ASI Series, Series C: Mathematical and Physical Sciences, 1389-2185 -- 520; NATO ASI series -- 520.
Publisher: Springer Netherlands; Imprint; Springer
Published: 1999
Place of publication: Dordrecht
Language: eng
Format: [electronic resource] /
Number of pages: 508
ISBN-13: 9789401147309
Other titles: Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Study Institute, Cargèse, France, May 26-June 14, 1997
Description: As recent developments have shown, supersymmetric quantum field theory and string theory are intimately related, with advances in one area often shedding light on the other. The organising ideas of most of these advances are the notion of duality and the physics of higher dimensional objects or <em>p</em>-branes. <br/> The topics covered in the present volume include duality in field theory, in particular in supersymmetric field theory and supergravity, and in string theory. The Seiberg-Witten theory and its recent developments are also covered in detail. A large fraction of the volume is devoted to the current state of the art in M-theory, in particular its underlying superalgebra as well as its connection with superstring and <em>N</em> = 2 strings. The physics of D-branes and its essential role in the beautiful computation of the black hole entropy is also carefully covered. Finally, the last two sets of lectures are devoted to the exciting matrix approach to non-perturbative string theory.