Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-24hb2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-29T10:13:56.767Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

16 - Towards M- and F-theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 November 2009

Clifford V. Johnson
Affiliation:
University of Durham
Get access

Summary

As we saw in chapter 12, there is an extremely tantalising picture of the fate of string theory at strong coupling, obtained using certain ‘duality’ transformations. In fact, D-branes were rather useful, as they allowed for an explicit constructive method for finding evidence of the products of duality, for example exhibiting stable states which must exist – with special properties – on both sides of the duality.

One major task is to try to understand how to write better formulations of the physics of strong coupling. There are two main goals to be achieved by this. The first is simply to find better ways of finding new and interesting backgrounds (vacua) for string theory, with techniques which allow for better handing of strongly coupled regions of the solution. The second is to attempt to find the ‘correct’ manner in which to describe the complete M-theory from which all string theories are supposed to arise as weakly coupled limits.

Both ‘Matrix theory’ and ‘F-theory’ are ideas in these directions, putting together the strongly coupled brane and string data in ways which allow for new geometric ways of describing and connecting string vacua, and giving insights into the next generation of formulations of the physics. In this chapter we shall uncover aspects of both, while learning much more about the properties of various branes.

The type IIB string and F-theory

One of the remarkable dualities which we observed in chapter 12 was the ‘self-duality’ of the type IIB superstring theory.

Type
Chapter
Information
D-Branes , pp. 367 - 408
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2002

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×