No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

In this thesis we examine some of the interesting aspects of the Wess-Zumino- Novikov-Witten model when this model has been gauged and its energy tensor twisted by the addition of the derivative of one of its Cartan subalgebra valued currents. Specifically we consider the group valued model with the group taken as 5^(211) which is the Lie super group used to describe N = 2 supersymmetry. This model is advocated as being a good and natural description of the N = 2 superstring (also known as the charged spinning string, or N = 2 fermionic string) when it tensors an additional topological system of ghosts. The evidence for this assertion is presented by gauging and twisting the model and then extracting the N = 2 super Liouville action by the method of Hamiltonian reduction. The connection between the 5L (2|1)/5L (2|1) Wess-Zumino-Novikov-Witten model and field theory is made through its current algebra. As is true of many super groups there exists more than one interpretation of the Dynkin diagram for the algebra of 5L(2|1) and this results in more that one set of currents for this model. The classical and quantum currents in free field form are found in both cases, as is the highly non-linear transformation by which the two sets of currents are related. An analysis of a section of the cohomology of physical states of the model is undertaken. It is shown that the additional topological ghost system that tensors the gauged, twisted SL (2\l) model when it describes the N = 2 string only contributes a vacuum state to the overall cohomology, so reducing the analysis. As the 5L(2|1)/5L(2|1) Wess-Zumino-Novikov-Witten model is a topological field theory its spectrum of physical states lie in the cohomology class defined with respect to the BRST charge. The spectrum formed from the free field currents composes the so called Wakimoto module and this is calculated via the BRST formalism.

This thesis exhibits a range of applications of combinatoric methods to string theory. The concepts and techniques used in the counting of ribbon graphs, the theory of finite groups, and the construction of cell complexes can give powerful methods and interesting insights into the nature of gauge-string duality, the limits of CFT factorisation, and the topology of worldsheet moduli space. The first part presents a candidate space-time theory of the Belyi string with a holographic extension to three-dimensional Euclidean gravity. This is a model of gauge-string duality in which the correlators of the Gaussian Hermitian matrix model are identfied with sums over worldsheet embeddings onto the 2-sphere target space. We show that the matrix model can be reformulated on the sphere by using su(2) representation couplings, and that the analogues of Feynman diagrams in this model can be holographically extended to 3-manifolds within the Ponzano-Regge model. The second part explores the limits of large N factorisation in conformal field theory and the dual interpretation in supergravity. By considering exact finite N correlators of single and multi-trace half-BPS operators in N = 4 super Yang-Mills theory in four dimensions, we can explicitly nd the exact threshold of the operator dimensions at which the correlators fail to factorise. In the dual supergravity, this is the energy regime at which quantum correlations between distinct gravitons become non-vanishing. The third part develops a cell decomposition of the moduli space of punctured Riemann surfaces. The cells are specified by a particular family of ribbon graphs, and we show that these graphs correspond to equivalence classes of permutation tuples arising from branched coverings of the Riemann sphere. This description yields efficient computational approaches for understanding the topology of moduli space.

We explore dualities and solution-generating transformations in various contexts. Our focus is on the T-duality invariant form of supergravity known as double fi eld theory, the SL(5)-invariant M-theory extended geometry, and metrics dual under the fluid/gravity correspondence to an incompressible Navier-Stokes fluid. In double fi eld theory (DFT), a wave solution is shown to embed both the F1 string and the pp-wave. For the former, the Goldstone mode dynamics reproduce the duality symmetric string introduced by Tseytlin. We consider solution-generating techniques in DFT in the presence of an isometry, firstly via Buscher-like transformations in the DFT string -model, and secondly via the DFT equations of motion. In the SL(5)-invariant geometry, we provide a chain rule derivation of the covariant equations of motion, and present a wave solution embedding the M2 brane. Lastly, solution-generating transformations for metrics with an isometry are considered in the context of the fluid/gravity correspondence. Our focus is on the vacuum Rindler metric dual to a codimension one Navier- Stokes fluid. In particular, when there is a radially directed Killing vector, the dual fluid is found to exhibit an energy scaling invariance valid to all orders in the hydrodynamic expansion.

No description available.

No description available.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Dept. of Physics, August 1997. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

In Chapter 1, we give an introduction to the topic of open string field theory. The concepts presented include gauge invariance, tachyon condensation, as well as the star product. In Chapter 2, we give a brief review of vacuum string field theory (VSFT), an approach to open string field theory around the stable vacuum of the tachyon. We discuss the sliver state explaining its role as projector in the space of half-string basis. We review the construction of D-brane solutions in vacuum string field theory. We show that in the sliver basis the star product correspond to a matrix product. Using the material introduced in the previous chapters, in Chapter 3 we establish a translation dictionary between open and closed strings, starting from open string field theory. Under this correspondence, we show that (off--shell) level--matched closed string states are represented by star algebra projectors in open string field theory. As an outcome of our identification, we show that boundary states, which in closed string theory represent D-branes, correspond to the identity string field in the open string side. We then turn to noncommutative field theories. In Chapter 4, we introduce the framework in which we will work. The tools introduced are solitons, projectors, and partial isometries. The ideas of Chapter 4 are applied to specific examples in Chapter 5, where we present new solutions of noncommutative gauge theories in which coincident vortices expand into circular shells. As the theories are noncommutative, the naive definition of the locations of the vortices and shells is gauge-dependent, and so we define and calculate the profiles of these solutions using the gauge-invariant noncommutative Wilson lines introduced by Gross and Nekrasov. We find that charge 2 vortex solutions are characterized by two positions and a single nonnegative real number, which we demonstrate is the radius of the shell. We find that the radius is identically zero in all 2-dimensional solutions. If one considers solutions that depend on an additional commutative direction, then there are time-dependent solutions in which the radius oscillates, resembling a braneworld description of a cyclic universe. There are also smooth BIon-like space-dependent solutions in which the shell expands to infinity, describing a vortex ending on a domain wall. In Chapter 6, we review the Fronsdal models for free high-spin fields that exhibit peculiar properties. We discuss the triplet structure of totally symmetric tensors of the free String Field Theory and their generalization to AdS background. In Chapter 7, in the context of massless higher spin gauge fields in constant curvature spaces discussed in chapter 6, we compute the surface charges which generalize the electric charge for spin one, the color charges in Yang-Mills theories and the energy-momentum and the angular momentum for asymptotically flat gravitational fields. We show that there is a one-to-one map from surface charges onto divergence free Killing tensors. These Killing tensors are computed by relating them to a cohomology group of the first quantized BRST model underlying the Fronsdal action.