A First Course in String Theory

by Barton Zwiebach

Overview

String theory made understandable. Barton Zwiebach is once again faithful to his goal of making string theory accessible to undergraduates. He presents the main concepts of string theory in a concrete and physical way to develop intuition before formalism, often through simplified and illustrative examples. Complete and thorough in its coverage, this new edition now includes AdS/CFT correspondence and introduces superstrings. It is perfectly suited to introductory courses in string theory for students with a background in mathematics and physics. New sections cover strings on orbifolds, cosmic strings, moduli stabilization, and the string theory landscape. Now with almost 300 problems and exercises, with password-protected solutions for instructors at www.cambridge.org/zwiebach.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781139637640
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	01/22/2009
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	31 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Barton Zwiebach is Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His central contributions have been in the area of string field theory, where he did the early work on the construction of the field theory of open strings and then developed the field theory of closed strings. He has also made important contributions to the subjects of D-branes with exceptional symmetry and tachyon condensation.

Table of Contents

Foreword; Preface; Acknowledgements; Part I. Basics: 1. A brief introduction; 2. Special relativity and extra dimensions; 3. Electromagnetism and gravitation in various dimensions; 4. Nonrelativistic strings; 5. The relativistic point particle; 6. Relativistic strings; 7. Strong parameterization and classical motion; 8. World-sheet currents; 9. Light-cone relativistic strings; 10. Light-cone fields and particles; 11. The relativistic quantum point particle; 12, Relativistic quantum closed strings; 13. Relativistic quantum closed strings; 14. A look at relativistic superstrings; Part II. Developments: 15. D-branes and gauge fields; 16. String charge and electric charge; 17. T-duality of closed strings; 18. T-duality of open strings; 19. Electromagnetism fields in D-branes; 20. Nonlinear and Born-Infeld electrodynamics; 21. Strong theory and particle physics; 22. String thermodynamics and black holes; 23. Strong interactions and AdS/CFT; 24. Covariant string quantization; 25. String interactions and Riemann surfaces; 26. Loop amplitudes in string theory; References; Index.

Editorial Reviews

"When it first appeared, Zwiebach's A First Course in String Theory provided a great launching point for those who wanted to learn about the field of string theory... .The second edition is filled with many updates, including the connection to particle physics emphasizing the strong interactions, and provides an even better starting point for beginning physicists interested in learning about this exciting field."
- Professor Per Berglund, University of New Hampshire

From the Publisher