String field theory

Encyclopedia : S : ST : STR : String field theory

String theory

bosonic string theory
superstring theory
*type I string
*type II string
*heterotic string
M-theory (simplified)
string field theory
strings
branes
Related topics

quantum field theory
*gauge theory
*conformal field theory
*topological field theory
supersymmetry
supergravity
general relativity
quantum gravity
See also

string theory topics
String field theory is a proposal to define string theory in such a way that the background independence is respected. String field theory can be understood as a quantum field theory with infinitely many fields which are unified into one master "string field". This string field, roughly speaking, assigns an operator to every one-dimensional curve (string) in spacetime, much like a quantum field assigns an operator to each zero-dimensional point in spacetime.

String field theory did not turn out to be helpful in the second superstring revolution because this revolution has revealed that other objects such as branes are as fundamental as the strings themselves. String field theory is based on the assumption that the strings are the fundamental objects, and it makes it more difficult (or impossible) to understand dualities within its framework.

There are several versions of string field theory - for example the boundary string field theory or the cubic (Chern-Simons-like) string field theory constructed by Edward Witten. In the late 1990s, both of them turned out to be very useful to understand tachyon condensation.

References

[String field theory on arxiv.org]

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.