String Theory

Hybrids at Hand: The Problem of Representing the Heterotic Superstring

by Sean Miller

This paper was presented originally at the 2008 MLA Convention in San Francisco. It was part of a panel entitled "Beyond Representation: New Work in Literature and Science," chaired by Professor Henry Turner of Rutgers University and sponsored by the Division on Science and Literature.

The essay analyzes a prominent technical article from string theory in order to offer up an alternative to a... more The essay analyzes a prominent technical article from string theory in order to offer up an alternative to a "realist" notion of representation, one that is often imposed problematically on theoretical physics.

Imagining Braneworlds in String Theory Technical Discourse

by Sean Miller

In 2008, this essay won the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts Bruns Essay Prize. It was published in Discourse, Volume 29, Number 1, Winter 2007, pp. 77-100.

The paper examines the ways in which string theorists construct what I call a "scientific imaginary" as... more The paper examines the ways in which string theorists construct what I call a "scientific imaginary" as manifest in two technical articles concerned with branes and the braneworld scenario: Joseph Polchinski's "Dirichlet-Branes and Ramond-Ramond Charges" and "Brane World" by Zurab Kakushadze and S.-H. Henry Tye. Such an examination addresses issues of corporeality, animality, visuality, tactility, permeability, and boundaries as they pertain to the core image of the brane within these articles. Rather than an exhaustive survey of brane imagery, it offers an analysis of the particular imaginaries that these string theorists employ within technical discourse. What the essay is most concerned with is the overlap between these terms' ostensibly precise technical meanings and the inferential structure of the images from which the terms originate. I argue that such images bear with them a set of more familiar and earth-bound associations that are both necessary and productive. The cumulative effect within each of these technical articles, then, is the evocation and employment of a scientific imaginary.

Comment on "Geometrothermodynamics of a Charged Black Hole of String Theory"

by Cesar S Lopez-Monsalvo

Co-authored with Francisco Nettel and Alberto Sanches. To appear in Brazilian Journal of Physics.

We comment on the conclusions found by Larra\~naga and Mojica regarding the consistency of the Geoemtrothermodynamics... more We comment on the conclusions found by Larra\~naga and Mojica regarding the consistency of the Geoemtrothermodynamics programme to describe the critical behaviour of a Gibbons-Maeda-Garfinkle-Horowitz-Strominger charged black hole. We argue that making the appropriate choice of metric for the thermodynamic phase space and, most importantly, considering the homogeneity of the thermodynamic potential we obtain consistent results for such a black hole.

Higher spin fermions in the BTZ black hole

by Shouvik Datta

Weierstrass meets Enriques

by Rainer Ebert

Science and Math Defeated Glossary of Technical Terminology

by Nikolay Sokolov

Also published online: http://sciencedefeated.wordpress.com/glossary-of-terms/

Several readers, particularly Todd Trimble, repeatedly challenge me to “systematize” my findings, and develop them... more Several readers, particularly Todd Trimble, repeatedly challenge me to “systematize” my findings, and develop them into an actual language. I think this is quite wise, if not impossible. Sometimes I use terms that are idiosyncratic and/or have been explained in previous posts. However, the document will also constitute its own special resource. Where helpful, I have added example sentences that in some way illustrate the meaning of the word. There is a dash of humor throughout, in order to keep the technical stuff more lively.

D-brane Superpotentials: Geometric and Worldsheet Approaches

by Marco Baumgartl

From the worldsheet perspective, the superpotential on a D-brane wrapping internal cycles of a Calabi-Yau manifold is... more From the worldsheet perspective, the superpotential on a D-brane wrapping internal cycles of a Calabi-Yau manifold is given as a generating functional for disk correlation functions. On the other hand, from the geometric point of view, D-brane superpotentials are captured by certain chain integrals. In this work, we explicitly show for branes wrapping internal 2-cycles how these two different approaches are related. More specifically, from the worldsheet point of view, D-branes at the Landau-Ginzburg point have a convenient description in terms of matrix factorizations. We use a formula derived by Kapustin and Li to explicitly evaluate disk correlators for families of D2-branes. On the geometry side, we then construct a three-chain whose period gives rise to the effective superpotential and show that the two expressions coincide. Finally, as an explicit example, we choose a particular compact Calabi-Yau hypersurface and compute the effective D2-brane superpotential in different branches of the open moduli space, in both geometric and worldsheet approaches.

Open-closed string correspondence: D-brane decay in curved space

by Marco Baumgartl

This paper analyzes the effect of curved closed string backgrounds on the stability of D-branes within boundary string... more This paper analyzes the effect of curved closed string backgrounds on the stability of D-branes within boundary string field theory. We identify the non-local open string background that implements shifts in the closed string background and analyze the tachyonic sector off-shell. The renormalization group flow reveals some characteristic properties, which are expected for a curved background, like the absence of a stable space-filling brane. In 3-dimensions we describe tachyon condensation processes to lower-dimensional branes, including a curved 2-dimensional brane. We argue that this 2-brane is perturbatively stable. This is in agreement with the known maximally symmetric WZW-branes and provides further support to the bulk-boundary factorization approach to open-closed string correspondence.

Superstrings: A brief overview

by Nicolo' Masi

Exotic E11 branes as composite gravitational solutions

by Paul Cook

A two-parameter group element is presented that interpolates between M-brane solutions. The group element is used to... more A two-parameter group element is presented that interpolates between M-brane solutions. The group element is used to interpret a number of exotic branes related to the generators of the adjoint representation of E11 as non-marginal half-BPS bound states of M-branes. It is conjectured that the adjoint representation of E11 contains only generators related to bound states of fundamental M-branes which, in the limit, may be understood as membrane molecules.

Foundations of Motivic Integration

by Andrew Stout

draft only (cf. J. Denef & F. Loeser)

Motivic Integration was created in 1995 by Maxim Kontsevich in order to affirmatively answer that the Universe, as... more Motivic Integration was created in 1995 by Maxim Kontsevich in order to affirmatively answer that the Universe, as conjectured by String Theorists, has what is known as Mirror Symmetry. This paper explains, at the most basic level, the notion of the Motivic Integral.

Multidimensional spatial sound design for 'On the String'

by PerMagnus Lindborg

Lindborg, PerMagnus & Koh, Joyce Beetuan (2011). “Multidimensional spatial sound design for ‘On the String’”. Proceedings of the International Conference of Computer Music (ICMC). University of Huddersfield, UK. July 2011. [peer review of article]

“On the String” is an installation-performance scored for sound sculptures, real-time synthesis, musicians, light... more “On the String” is an installation-performance scored for sound sculptures, real-time synthesis, musicians, light display and an immersive sound diffusion system. The composition, inspired by String Theory, called for the design of an immersive sound design that could be flexibly adapted to different diffusion situations. The software design aimed to realise a concept of sonic objects moving in four-dimensional space. The paper describes loudspeaker setup and software implementation of the work. Other aspects of the work, such as composition, sculptural elements, real-time synthesis, staging and light design, have been described in [4]. A DVD is available [3].

Pair Production: The Origin of Charge,Mass, and CP Symmetry

by Charles Laster

Started as an educational for pair production to go with the general educational model I was developing. While it stated out in harmony with all the fields if physics, the theory as a whole was quite general as befitting an educational model. But as the complexity grows, it is slowly becoming a theory on its own right, now it seems to be departing from the standard model on some aspects like CPT symmetry.

An elementary geometrical vector examination of pair production does an excellent job of showing the CP symmetry of... more An elementary geometrical vector examination of pair production does an excellent job of showing the CP symmetry of the process, and gives a visual model of the vacuum and virtual particles. However CPT symmetry is not seen in the model.

Quark Confinement and the Nucleus

by Charles Laster

Draft copy. Been working with a String Theory Development group who have been helping with how my educational model relates to string theory and be used in it.

A semi-classical model of quark confinement is used which incorporates elements of both the Anti de Sitter model and... more A semi-classical model of quark confinement is used which incorporates elements of both the Anti de Sitter model and the MIT Bag model. It serves as a good introduction to these and can be used to explore some of the aspects of string theory for the student and layperson.

"Make a Scene": for a feature film

by Jose Vazquez

Bringing historical musical instruments to a broader public is a task of the Orpheon Foundation. Here is an interesting way to do this...(this is not a paper, but a report of an event)

In the film, "The Piano Teacher" ("The Pianist", "Die Klavierlehrerin") by Michael... more In the film, "The Piano Teacher" ("The Pianist", "Die Klavierlehrerin") by Michael Haneke on the novel by Elfriede Jelinek, a scene took place in the house of a famous musical instrument collector. So Wega-Films turned to the Orpheon Foundation to "Make a Scene", quite literally! About a dozen priceless historical violas da gamba, violins and cellos and a number of bows made their way to the Vienna apartment where the filming was taking place and stayed during the entire filming (together with me, of course). Here is a report of what happened:

http://orpheon.org/OldSite/Seiten/education/makeascene.htm

The Historical Bow: a brief Iconographical Survey

by Jose Vazquez

Historical bows from the Renaissance and the Baroque Periods present a plethora of forms.

Historical bows from the Renaissance and the Baroque Periods present a plethora of forms. Standardization was not... more Historical bows from the Renaissance and the Baroque Periods present a plethora of forms. Standardization was not achieved until the 19th C., with the work of Franz Xaver Tourte. This brief survey juxtaposes the forms found in painting with the more than 50 original bows for the violin and viola da gamba families from 1600 to 1860 in my collection. This material was presented in the catalog of the collection, 1993, in German. Two of the myths, currently circulating, that the older bows were - necessarily - outward-curving and that they were short, are very convincingly dispelled by the high percentage of very long and very straight bows seen in painting as early as the beginning of the 16th Century.

Below the English texts.

http://www.orpheon.org/oldsite/seiten/education/bow.htm

http://www.orpheon.org/oldsite/seiten/education/BowViolin.htm

http://www.orpheon.org/oldsite/seiten/education/BowVdg.htm

http://web.mac.com/vazquezjose/iWeb/EU-Project/Bows.html

Viola da gamba and Violin Families: Differences & Similarities

by Jose Vazquez

Originally published in German in the catalog of the exhibition of 1993: "Die Vazquez-Sammlung Historischer Streichinstrumente"; here in table form on the internet, in English.

These two families of string instruments, the viola da gamba and the viola da braccio (or violin), coexisted during... more These two families of string instruments, the viola da gamba and the viola da braccio (or violin), coexisted during almost 300 years. Strikingly, the current "text-book" definitions of "viola da gamba" are incredibly misleading, presenting clichets which are not verifiable nor sustainable in face of the iconographical evidence and the extant instruments. You might be surprised...

Only available via internet (html) in English. In printed form at our exhibitions.

http://orpheon.org/OldSite/Seiten/education/Violin_Vdg_Families.htm

On Establishing the Basis for the Interpretation of the Works of Marin Marais

by Jose Vazquez

This paper has been presented in several universities and conservatories in Austria, France, Italy, Spain. A synopsis is accessible through the link provided.

The paper - often presented in the form of a lecture demonstration - lays the musicological basis for the... more The paper - often presented in the form of a lecture demonstration - lays the musicological basis for the interpretation of the works for viola da gamba of Marin Marais. Knowledge of these different aspects of his art are essential, if one is to understand the esthetics behind the works.
Here link:
http://www.orpheon.org/OldSite/Seiten/Documents/MaraisSeminar.htm
http://www.orpheon.org/OldSite/Seiten/Documents/MaraisProgram.htm

The Sonatas for Viola da gamba & Harpsichord by J. S. Bach

by Jose Vazquez

This seminar has been presented - often as a lecture-demonstration - in Austria, France, Spain and Italy.

An examination of the source materials and relevant corroborative information towards establishing a basis for the... more An examination of the source materials and relevant corroborative information towards establishing a basis for the interpretation of these three very different works.
Here the link:
http://www.orpheon.org/OldSite/Seiten/Documents/bach.htm

Diversity of Forms of the Viola da gamba

by Jose Vazquez

Published in the "Viola da gamba Nachrichten" in German. Here the English texts, with the complete iconography, via the links.

Contrary to the violin, whose final form was established irrevocably by the work of Andrea Amati in the 16th C., the... more Contrary to the violin, whose final form was established irrevocably by the work of Andrea Amati in the 16th C., the viola da gamba never experienced a standardization of form. It seems that each maker had a different idea, indeed many ideas, of what a viola da gamba should look like. The present article, which appeared in German, can be accessed in its English translation via this link.

http://web.me.com/vazquezjose/Orpheon/Vdg-Valencia-E.html