Graduate Course "String Theory"

2015 @ National Taiwan University [course website]

lecture notes: [all-combined]

1. Nambu-Goto and Polyakov action, introduction to path integrals
2. Interaction of strings, basics of 2D conformal field theories
3. Weyl anomaly and conditions for the vacua
4. BRST gauge fixing and reparametrization ghosts (updated 2017/11/22)
5. Amplitudes and spectrum
6. Worldsheet supersymmetry, introduction to spinors, SUSY, supergravity
7. type IIA / IIB superstrings and 10D supergravity
8. Open strings and D-branes
9. One-loop amplitudes, unoriented strings
10. Compactification and T-duality
11. Tension, charge and the action for D-branes
12. Superstring dualities
13. Brane dynamics and developments in SUSY gauge theories
14. Black holes in string theory
15. AdS/CFT correspondence

Updates

• These lecture notes were chosen as the text for students reading club at University of Tokyo for the spring semester 2016. Thanks a lot! I received some suggestions for improvements and corrections of typos.
• 2017.11.22 -- chapter 04, the discussion on ghost number and its anomaly was improved. (Thanks to D. Yokoyama)