01/04/2015 Lecture 1: Classical Strings
1. Motivation (and demotivation)
2. Relativistic point particles
3. Nambu–Goto action
4. Polyakov action
5. Symmetries of a String
6. (Classical) Mode Expansion
Main reference: section 1, Notes of Prof. David Tong.
The exercise sheet is here.
08/04/2015 Lecture 2: Light-Cone Quantisation of Closed Strings
Main reference: section 2, Notes of Prof. David Tong.
The exercise sheet is here.
10/04/2015 Lecture 3: Open Strings and D-branes
1. spectrum of closed bosonic strings
2. string interactions
3. open strings boundary conditions and D-branes
4. quantising open strings
Main reference: section 2, 3.1, 6.1 and 6.4.1 of Notes of Prof. David Tong.
The homework sheet is here. Deadline: FRIDAY 17/04 before 13h10 personally to the Sam/Francesca or before 12u30 in their pigeonholes.
15/04/2015 Lecture 4: Overview and Exercises
17/04/2015 Lecture 5: Conformal Symmetries and and Exercises
Next homework deadline: FRIDAY 24/04 before 13h10 personally to the Miranda or before 12u30 in the pigeonholes. Two corrections from the previous version: (1) The coordinates should be X^0, X^1 and X^2. (2) It should be a plus sign in the 2nd equation of the third question.
22/04/2015 Lecture 6: D-brane Action and 2d CFT (I)
1. D-brane Action: Nambu-Goto, Maxwell Fields and Coupling to Background Fields
2. Correlation Functions of Primary Fields
3. Symmetries and Noether Theorem
Main reference: section 3 of of Notes of Prof. David Tong, section 2 of Ginsparg's Notes, section 2 of Polchinski Vol. I
Exercise
24/04/2015 Lecture 7: 2d CFT (II)
1. Conformal Ward Identity
2. Radial Quantisation
3. The Free Boson Example
Main reference: section 4 of of Notes of Prof. David Tong, section 2 of Ginsparg's Notes.
Next homework deadline: FRIDAY 01/05.
29/04/2015 Lecture 8: 2d CFT (III)
1. The Free Boson
2. The Virasoro Algebra and the central charge
Main reference: section 4 of of Notes of Prof. David Tong, section 3 of Ginsparg's Notes.
01/05/2015 Lecture 9: Covariant Quantisation and Compactification
1. Covariant Quantisation
2. Toroidal Compactification
Main reference: section 5 and 8 of of Notes of Prof. David Tong, section 3.1, 3.2 and 8.2 of Polchinski Vol. I.
Next homework deadline: FRIDAY 08/05.
06/05/2015 Lecture 10: Compactification and T-duality
1. Compactification from the World-Sheet; T-duality
2. Compactification from the Spacetime: the Kaluza-Klein reduction
Main reference: section 8 of of Notes of Prof. David Tong
08/05/2015 Lecture 11: Spacetime Physics
1. Spacetime Physics from the World-Sheet
2. Low Energy Effective Actions
Main reference: section 7 of of Notes of Prof. David Tong, Section 3.7 of Polchinski Vol. I.
Next homework deadline: WED 20/05.
13/05/2015 Lecture 12: Superstrings (I)
1. R-NS Action
2. Worldsheet Supersymmetry
3. Mode Expansion: Ramond and Neveu-Schwarz sectors
Main reference: Section 4 of the book by Becker-Becker-Schwarz. Sec 4 of Greene-Schwarz-Witten Vol. 1.
20/05/2015 Lecture 13: Superstrings (II)
1. Superconformal Invariance and Light-Cone Quantisation
2. Canonical Quantisaion and the Critical Dimensions
3. The Low-Lying (Pre)-Spectrum
Main reference: Section 4 of the book by Becker-Becker-Schwarz.
22/05/2015 Lecture 14: Type II String Theory and D-Branes
1. GSO Projection
2. Branes in Type II Superstring Theory
3. T-Duality
Main reference: Section 10, 13 of Polchinski Vol.2.
STRING THEORY EXTENSION
10/06
Presentations:
- Holography and Black Holes (John Hoàng & Shustrov Yaroslav)
- WZW theory and Chern-Simons Theory (Vittorio Vicciardulli)
15/06
Presentations:
- M-theory and String Dualities (Thom Pijnenburg & Jaap Wijnen)
- Heterotic String Theory , part I (Marten Reehorst, Max Weltevreden, Vassilis Anagiannis)
17/06
Presentations:
- Heterotic String Theory, Part II (Marten Reehorst, Max Weltevreden, Vassilis Anagiannis)
- String Compactifications (Dimitrios Krommydos, Mikola Schlottka, Felicio Gordilho Fernandes, Isaias Raldan)
22/06
Lectures by Dr. Diego Hofman
AdS/CFT Correspondence and Applications (I)
24/06
Lectures by Dr. Diego Hofman
AdS/CFT Correspondence and Applications (II)
?/09
Presentations:
Mirror Symmetry
F- Theory