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String theory
Summarize
In physics, string theory is a theoretical framework in which the point-like particles of particle physics are
replaced by one-dimensional objects called strings. String theory describes how theseChat strings
With This Website through
propagate
space and interact with each other. On distance scales larger than the string scale, a string acts like a particle,
with its mass, charge, and other properties determined by the vibrational state of the string. In string theory, one
of the many vibrational states of the string corresponds to the graviton, a quantum mechanical particle that
carries the gravitational force. Thus, string theory is a theory of quantum gravity.

String theory is a broad and varied subject that attempts to address a number of deep questions of fundamental
physics. String theory has contributed a number of advances to mathematical physics, which have been applied
to a variety of problems in black hole physics, early universe cosmology, nuclear physics, and condensed matter
physics, and it has stimulated a number of major developments in pure mathematics. Because string theory
potentially provides a unified description of gravity and particle physics, it is a candidate for a theory of
everything, a self-contained mathematical model that describes all fundamental forces and forms of matter.
Despite much work on these problems, it is not known to what extent string theory describes the real world or
how much freedom the theory allows in the choice of its details.

String theory was first studied in the late 1960s as a theory of the strong nuclear force, before being abandoned
in favor of quantum chromodynamics. Subsequently, it was realized that the very properties that made string
theory unsuitable as a theory of nuclear physics made it a promising candidate for a quantum theory of gravity.
The earliest version of string theory, bosonic string theory, incorporated only the class of particles known as
bosons. It later developed into superstring theory, which posits a connection called supersymmetry between
bosons and the class of particles called fermions. Five consistent versions of superstring theory were developed
before it was conjectured in the mid-1990s that they were all different limiting cases of a single theory in eleven
dimensions known as M-theory. In late 1997, theorists discovered an important relationship called the anti-de
Sitter/conformal field theory correspondence (AdS/CFT correspondence), which relates string theory to another
type of physical theory called a quantum field theory.

One of the challenges of string theory is that the full theory does not have a satisfactory definition in all
circumstances. Another issue is that the theory is thought to describe an enormous landscape of possible
universes, which has complicated efforts to develop theories of particle physics based on string theory. These
issues have led some in the community to criticize these approaches to physics, and to question the value of
continued research on string theory unification.

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Fundamentals

Overview
In the 20th century, two theoretical frameworks emerged for formulating
the laws of physics. The first is Albert Einstein's general theory of
relativity, a theory that explains the force of gravity and the structure of
spacetime at the macro-level. The other is quantum mechanics, a
completely different formulation, which uses known probability The fundamental objects of string
principles to describe physical phenomena at the micro-level. By the late theory are open and closed strings.
1970s, these two frameworks had proven to be sufficient to explain most
of the observed features of the universe, from elementary particles to
atoms to the evolution of stars and the universe as a whole.[1]

In spite of these successes, there are still many problems that remain to be solved. One of the deepest problems
in modern physics is the problem of quantum gravity.[1] The general theory of relativity is formulated within the
framework of classical physics, whereas the other fundamental forces are described within the framework of
quantum mechanics. A quantum theory of gravity is needed in order to reconcile general relativity with the
principles of quantum mechanics, but difficulties arise when one attempts to apply the usual prescriptions of
quantum theory to the force of gravity.[2]

String theory is a theoretical framework that attempts to address these questions.

The starting point for string theory is the idea that the point-like particles of particle physics can also be
modeled as one-dimensional objects called strings. String theory describes how strings propagate through space
and interact with each other. In a given version of string theory, there is only one kind of string, which may look
like a small loop or segment of ordinary string, and it can vibrate in different ways. On distance scales larger
than the string scale, a string will look just like an ordinary particle consistent with non-string models of
elementary particles, with its mass, charge, and other properties determined by the vibrational state of the string.
String theory's application as a form of quantum gravity proposes a vibrational state responsible for the
graviton, a yet unproven quantum particle that is theorized to carry gravitational force.[3]

One of the main developments of the past several decades in string theory was the discovery of certain
'dualities', mathematical transformations that identify one physical theory with another. Physicists studying
string theory have discovered a number of these dualities between different versions of string theory, and this
has led to the conjecture that all consistent versions of string theory are subsumed in a single framework known
as M-theory.[4]

Studies of string theory have also yielded a number of results on the nature of black holes and the gravitational
interaction. There are certain paradoxes that arise when one attempts to understand the quantum aspects of black
holes, and work on string theory has attempted to clarify these issues. In late 1997 this line of work culminated
in the discovery of the anti-de Sitter/conformal field theory correspondence or AdS/CFT.[5] This is a theoretical
result that relates string theory to other physical theories which are better understood theoretically. The
AdS/CFT correspondence has implications for the study of black holes and quantum gravity, and it has been
applied to other subjects, including nuclear[6] and condensed matter physics.[7][8]
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Since string theory incorporates all of the fundamental interactions, including gravity, many physicists hope that
it will eventually be developed to the point where it fully describes our universe, making it a theory of
everything. One of the goals of current research in string theory is to find a solution of the theory that
reproduces the observed spectrum of elementary particles, with a small cosmological constant, containing dark
matter and a plausible mechanism for cosmic inflation. While there has been progress toward these goals, it is
not known to what extent string theory describes the real world or how much freedom the theory allows in the
choice of details.[9]

One of the challenges of string theory is that the full theory does not have a satisfactory definition in all
circumstances. The scattering of strings is most straightforwardly defined using the techniques of perturbation
theory, but it is not known in general how to define string theory nonperturbatively.[10] It is also not clear
whether there is any principle by which string theory selects its vacuum state, the physical state that determines
the properties of our universe.[11] These problems have led some in the community to criticize these approaches
to the unification of physics and question the value of continued research on these problems.[12]

Strings
The application of quantum mechanics to physical objects such as
the electromagnetic field, which are extended in space and time, is
known as quantum field theory. In particle physics, quantum field
theories form the basis for our understanding of elementary
particles, which are modeled as excitations in the fundamental
fields.[13]

In quantum field theory, one typically computes the probabilities

Interaction in the quantum world: of various physical events using the techniques of perturbation
worldlines of point-like particles or a theory. Developed by Richard Feynman and others in the first half
worldsheet swept up by closed strings in of the twentieth century, perturbative quantum field theory uses
string theory special diagrams called Feynman diagrams to organize
computations. One imagines that these diagrams depict the paths
of point-like particles and their interactions.[13]

The starting point for string theory is the idea that the point-like particles of quantum field theory can also be
modeled as one-dimensional objects called strings.[14] The interaction of strings is most straightforwardly
defined by generalizing the perturbation theory used in ordinary quantum field theory. At the level of Feynman
diagrams, this means replacing the one-dimensional diagram representing the path of a point particle by a two-
dimensional (2D) surface representing the motion of a string.[15] Unlike in quantum field theory, string theory
does not have a full non-perturbative definition, so many of the theoretical questions that physicists would like
to answer remain out of reach.[16]

In theories of particle physics based on string theory, the characteristic length scale of strings is assumed to be
on the order of the Planck length, or 10−35 meters, the scale at which the effects of quantum gravity are
believed to become significant.[15] On much larger length scales, such as the scales visible in physics
laboratories, such objects would be indistinguishable from zero-dimensional point particles, and the vibrational
state of the string would determine the type of particle. One of the vibrational states of a string corresponds to
the graviton, a quantum mechanical particle that carries the gravitational force.[3]

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The original version of string theory was bosonic string theory, but this version described only bosons, a class of
particles that transmit forces between the matter particles, or fermions. Bosonic string theory was eventually
superseded by theories called superstring theories. These theories describe both bosons and fermions, and they
incorporate a theoretical idea called supersymmetry. In theories with supersymmetry, each boson has a
counterpart which is a fermion, and vice versa.[17]

There are several versions of superstring theory: type I, type IIA, type IIB, and two flavors of heterotic string
theory (SO(32) and E8×E8). The different theories allow different types of strings, and the particles that arise
at low energies exhibit different symmetries. For example, the type I theory includes both open strings (which
are segments with endpoints) and closed strings (which form closed loops), while types IIA, IIB and heterotic
include only closed strings.[18]

Extra dimensions
In everyday life, there are three familiar dimensions (3D) of space:
height, width and length. Einstein's general theory of relativity treats
time as a dimension on par with the three spatial dimensions; in general
relativity, space and time are not modeled as separate entities but are
instead unified to a four-dimensional (4D) spacetime. In this framework,
the phenomenon of gravity is viewed as a consequence of the geometry
of spacetime.[19]

In spite of the fact that the Universe is well described by 4D spacetime, An example of compactification: At
there are several reasons why physicists consider theories in other large distances, a two dimensional
dimensions. In some cases, by modeling spacetime in a different number surface with one circular dimension
looks one-dimensional.
of dimensions, a theory becomes more mathematically tractable, and one
can perform calculations and gain general insights more easily.[a] There
are also situations where theories in two or three spacetime dimensions are useful for describing phenomena in
condensed matter physics.[13] Finally, there exist scenarios in which there could actually be more than 4D of
spacetime which have nonetheless managed to escape detection.[20]

String theories require extra dimensions of spacetime for their mathematical consistency. In bosonic string
theory, spacetime is 26-dimensional, while in superstring theory it is 10-dimensional, and in M-theory it is 11-
dimensional. In order to describe real physical phenomena using string theory, one must therefore imagine
scenarios in which these extra dimensions would not be observed in experiments.[21]

Compactification is one way of modifying the number of dimensions in a physical theory. In compactification,
some of the extra dimensions are assumed to "close up" on themselves to form circles.[22] In the limit where
these curled up dimensions become very small, one obtains a theory in which spacetime has effectively a lower
number of dimensions. A standard analogy for this is to consider a multidimensional object such as a garden
hose. If the hose is viewed from a sufficient distance, it appears to have only one dimension, its length.
However, as one approaches the hose, one discovers that it contains a second dimension, its circumference.
Thus, an ant crawling on the surface of the hose would move in two dimensions.

Compactification can be used to construct models in which spacetime is effectively four-dimensional. However,
not every way of compactifying the extra dimensions produces a model with the right properties to describe
nature. In a viable model of particle physics, the compact extra dimensions must be shaped like a Calabi–Yau
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manifold.[22] A Calabi–Yau manifold is a special space which is typically

taken to be six-dimensional in applications to string theory. It is named
after mathematicians Eugenio Calabi and Shing-Tung Yau.[23]

Another approach to reducing the number of dimensions is the so-called

brane-world scenario. In this approach, physicists assume that the
observable universe is a four-dimensional subspace of a higher
dimensional space. In such models, the force-carrying bosons of particle
physics arise from open strings with endpoints attached to the four-
dimensional subspace, while gravity arises from closed strings
propagating through the larger ambient space. This idea plays an
important role in attempts to develop models of real-world physics based
A cross section of a quintic Calabi–
on string theory, and it provides a natural explanation for the weakness of
Yau manifold
gravity compared to the other fundamental forces.[24]

Dualities
A notable fact about string theory is
that the different versions of the theory
all turn out to be related in highly
nontrivial ways. One of the
relationships that can exist between
different string theories is called S-
duality. This is a relationship that says
that a collection of strongly interacting
particles in one theory can, in some
cases, be viewed as a collection of
A diagram of string theory dualities. Blue edges indicate S-duality. Red
weakly interacting particles in a
edges indicate T-duality.
completely different theory. Roughly
speaking, a collection of particles is
said to be strongly interacting if they combine and decay often and weakly interacting if they do so infrequently.
Type I string theory turns out to be equivalent by S-duality to the SO(32) heterotic string theory. Similarly, type
IIB string theory is related to itself in a nontrivial way by S-duality.[25]

Another relationship between different string theories is T-duality. Here one considers strings propagating
around a circular extra dimension. T-duality states that a string propagating around a circle of radius R is
equivalent to a string propagating around a circle of radius 1/R in the sense that all observable quantities in one
description are identified with quantities in the dual description. For example, a string has momentum as it
propagates around a circle, and it can also wind around the circle one or more times. The number of times the
string winds around a circle is called the winding number. If a string has momentum p and winding number n in
one description, it will have momentum n and winding number p in the dual description. For example, type IIA
string theory is equivalent to type IIB string theory via T-duality, and the two versions of heterotic string theory
are also related by T-duality.[25]

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In general, the term duality refers to a situation where two seemingly different physical systems turn out to be
equivalent in a nontrivial way. Two theories related by a duality need not be string theories. For example,
Montonen–Olive duality is an example of an S-duality relationship between quantum field theories. The
AdS/CFT correspondence is an example of a duality that relates string theory to a quantum field theory. If two
theories are related by a duality, it means that one theory can be transformed in some way so that it ends up
looking just like the other theory. The two theories are then said to be dual to one another under the
transformation. Put differently, the two theories are mathematically different descriptions of the same
phenomena.[26]

Branes
In string theory and other related theories, a brane is a physical object
that generalizes the notion of a point particle to higher dimensions. For
instance, a point particle can be viewed as a brane of dimension zero,
while a string can be viewed as a brane of dimension one. It is also
possible to consider higher-dimensional branes. In dimension p, these are
called p-branes. The word brane comes from the word "membrane"
which refers to a two-dimensional brane.[27]

Branes are dynamical objects which can propagate through spacetime Open strings attached to a pair of D-
according to the rules of quantum mechanics. They have mass and can branes
have other attributes such as charge. A p-brane sweeps out a (p+1)-
dimensional volume in spacetime called its worldvolume. Physicists
often study fields analogous to the electromagnetic field which live on the worldvolume of a brane.[27]

In string theory, D-branes are an important class of branes that arise when one considers open strings. As an
open string propagates through spacetime, its endpoints are required to lie on a D-brane. The letter "D" in D-
brane refers to a certain mathematical condition on the system known as the Dirichlet boundary condition. The
study of D-branes in string theory has led to important results such as the AdS/CFT correspondence, which has
shed light on many problems in quantum field theory.[27]

Branes are frequently studied from a purely mathematical point of view, and they are described as objects of
certain categories, such as the derived category of coherent sheaves on a complex algebraic variety, or the
Fukaya category of a symplectic manifold.[28] The connection between the physical notion of a brane and the
mathematical notion of a category has led to important mathematical insights in the fields of algebraic and
symplectic geometry[29] and representation theory.[30]

M-theory
Prior to 1995, theorists believed that there were five consistent versions of superstring theory (type I, type IIA,
type IIB, and two versions of heterotic string theory). This understanding changed in 1995 when Edward Witten
suggested that the five theories were just special limiting cases of an eleven-dimensional theory called M-
theory. Witten's conjecture was based on the work of a number of other physicists, including Ashoke Sen, Chris
Hull, Paul Townsend, and Michael Duff. His announcement led to a flurry of research activity now known as
the second superstring revolution.[31]

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Unification of superstring theories

In the 1970s, many physicists became interested in
supergravity theories, which combine general
relativity with supersymmetry. Whereas general
relativity makes sense in any number of dimensions,
supergravity places an upper limit on the number of
dimensions.[32] In 1978, work by Werner Nahm
showed that the maximum spacetime dimension in
which one can formulate a consistent
supersymmetric theory is eleven. [33] In the same
year, Eugene Cremmer, Bernard Julia, and Joël
Scherk of the École Normale Supérieure showed that
supergravity not only permits up to eleven
dimensions but is in fact most elegant in this A schematic illustration of the relationship between M-
maximal number of dimensions.[34][35] theory, the five superstring theories, and eleven-
dimensional supergravity. The shaded region represents a
Initially, many physicists hoped that by family of different physical scenarios that are possible in
M-theory. In certain limiting cases corresponding to the
compactifying eleven-dimensional supergravity, it
cusps, it is natural to describe the physics using one of the
might be possible to construct realistic models of our
six theories labeled there.
four-dimensional world. The hope was that such
models would provide a unified description of the
four fundamental forces of nature: electromagnetism, the strong and weak nuclear forces, and gravity. Interest in
eleven-dimensional supergravity soon waned as various flaws in this scheme were discovered. One of the
problems was that the laws of physics appear to distinguish between clockwise and counterclockwise, a
phenomenon known as chirality. Edward Witten and others observed this chirality property cannot be readily
derived by compactifying from eleven dimensions.[35]

In the first superstring revolution in 1984, many physicists turned to string theory as a unified theory of particle
physics and quantum gravity. Unlike supergravity theory, string theory was able to accommodate the chirality of
the standard model, and it provided a theory of gravity consistent with quantum effects.[35] Another feature of
string theory that many physicists were drawn to in the 1980s and 1990s was its high degree of uniqueness. In
ordinary particle theories, one can consider any collection of elementary particles whose classical behavior is
described by an arbitrary Lagrangian. In string theory, the possibilities are much more constrained: by the
1990s, physicists had argued that there were only five consistent supersymmetric versions of the theory.[35]

Although there were only a handful of consistent superstring theories, it remained a mystery why there was not
just one consistent formulation.[35] However, as physicists began to examine string theory more closely, they
realized that these theories are related in intricate and nontrivial ways. They found that a system of strongly
interacting strings can, in some cases, be viewed as a system of weakly interacting strings. This phenomenon is
known as S-duality. It was studied by Ashoke Sen in the context of heterotic strings in four dimensions[36][37]
and by Chris Hull and Paul Townsend in the context of the type IIB theory.[38] Theorists also found that
different string theories may be related by T-duality. This duality implies that strings propagating on completely
different spacetime geometries may be physically equivalent.[39]

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At around the same time, as many physicists were studying the properties of strings, a small group of physicists
were examining the possible applications of higher dimensional objects. In 1987, Eric Bergshoeff, Ergin Sezgin,
and Paul Townsend showed that eleven-dimensional supergravity includes two-dimensional branes.[40]
Intuitively, these objects look like sheets or membranes propagating through the eleven-dimensional spacetime.
Shortly after this discovery, Michael Duff, Paul Howe, Takeo Inami, and Kellogg Stelle considered a particular
compactification of eleven-dimensional supergravity with one of the dimensions curled up into a circle.[41] In
this setting, one can imagine the membrane wrapping around the circular dimension. If the radius of the circle is
sufficiently small, then this membrane looks just like a string in ten-dimensional spacetime. Duff and his
collaborators showed that this construction reproduces exactly the strings appearing in type IIA superstring
theory.[42]

Speaking at a string theory conference in 1995, Edward Witten made the surprising suggestion that all five
superstring theories were in fact just different limiting cases of a single theory in eleven spacetime dimensions.
Witten's announcement drew together all of the previous results on S- and T-duality and the appearance of
higher-dimensional branes in string theory.[43] In the months following Witten's announcement, hundreds of
new papers appeared on the Internet confirming different parts of his proposal.[44] Today this flurry of work is
known as the second superstring revolution.[45]

Initially, some physicists suggested that the new theory was a fundamental theory of membranes, but Witten was
skeptical of the role of membranes in the theory. In a paper from 1996, Hořava and Witten wrote "As it has been
proposed that the eleven-dimensional theory is a supermembrane theory but there are some reasons to doubt that
interpretation, we will non-committally call it the M-theory, leaving to the future the relation of M to
membranes."[46] In the absence of an understanding of the true meaning and structure of M-theory, Witten has
suggested that the M should stand for "magic", "mystery", or "membrane" according to taste, and the true
meaning of the title should be decided when a more fundamental formulation of the theory is known.[47]

Matrix theory
In mathematics, a matrix is a rectangular array of numbers or other data. In physics, a matrix model is a
particular kind of physical theory whose mathematical formulation involves the notion of a matrix in an
important way. A matrix model describes the behavior of a set of matrices within the framework of quantum
mechanics.[48]

One important example of a matrix model is the BFSS matrix model proposed by Tom Banks, Willy Fischler,
Stephen Shenker, and Leonard Susskind in 1997. This theory describes the behavior of a set of nine large
matrices. In their original paper, these authors showed, among other things, that the low energy limit of this
matrix model is described by eleven-dimensional supergravity. These calculations led them to propose that the
BFSS matrix model is exactly equivalent to M-theory. The BFSS matrix model can therefore be used as a
prototype for a correct formulation of M-theory and a tool for investigating the properties of M-theory in a
relatively simple setting.[48]

The development of the matrix model formulation of M-theory has led physicists to consider various
connections between string theory and a branch of mathematics called noncommutative geometry. This subject
is a generalization of ordinary geometry in which mathematicians define new geometric notions using tools
from noncommutative algebra.[49] In a paper from 1998, Alain Connes, Michael R. Douglas, and Albert
Schwarz showed that some aspects of matrix models and M-theory are described by a noncommutative quantum

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field theory, a special kind of physical theory in which spacetime is described mathematically using
noncommutative geometry.[50] This established a link between matrix models and M-theory on the one hand,
and noncommutative geometry on the other hand. It quickly led to the discovery of other important links
between noncommutative geometry and various physical theories.[51][52]

Black holes
In general relativity, a black hole is defined as a region of spacetime in which the gravitational field is so strong
that no particle or radiation can escape. In the currently accepted models of stellar evolution, black holes are
thought to arise when massive stars undergo gravitational collapse, and many galaxies are thought to contain
supermassive black holes at their centers. Black holes are also important for theoretical reasons, as they present
profound challenges for theorists attempting to understand the quantum aspects of gravity. String theory has
proved to be an important tool for investigating the theoretical properties of black holes because it provides a
framework in which theorists can study their thermodynamics.[53]

Bekenstein–Hawking formula
In the branch of physics called statistical mechanics, entropy is a measure of the randomness or disorder of a
physical system. This concept was studied in the 1870s by the Austrian physicist Ludwig Boltzmann, who
showed that the thermodynamic properties of a gas could be derived from the combined properties of its many
constituent molecules. Boltzmann argued that by averaging the behaviors of all the different molecules in a gas,
one can understand macroscopic properties such as volume, temperature, and pressure. In addition, this
perspective led him to give a precise definition of entropy as the natural logarithm of the number of different
states of the molecules (also called microstates) that give rise to the same macroscopic features.[54]

In the twentieth century, physicists began to apply the same concepts to black holes. In most systems such as
gases, the entropy scales with the volume. In the 1970s, the physicist Jacob Bekenstein suggested that the
entropy of a black hole is instead proportional to the surface area of its event horizon, the boundary beyond
which matter and radiation may escape its gravitational attraction.[55] When combined with ideas of the
physicist Stephen Hawking,[56] Bekenstein's work yielded a precise formula for the entropy of a black hole. The
Bekenstein–Hawking formula expresses the entropy S as

where c is the speed of light, k is the Boltzmann constant, ħ is the reduced Planck constant, G is Newton's
constant, and A is the surface area of the event horizon.[57]

Like any physical system, a black hole has an entropy defined in terms of the number of different microstates
that lead to the same macroscopic features. The Bekenstein–Hawking entropy formula gives the expected value
of the entropy of a black hole, but by the 1990s, physicists still lacked a derivation of this formula by counting
microstates in a theory of quantum gravity. Finding such a derivation of this formula was considered an
important test of the viability of any theory of quantum gravity such as string theory.[58]

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Derivation within string theory

In a paper from 1996, Andrew Strominger and Cumrun Vafa showed how to derive the Bekenstein–Hawking
formula for certain black holes in string theory.[59] Their calculation was based on the observation that D-branes
—which look like fluctuating membranes when they are weakly interacting—become dense, massive objects
with event horizons when the interactions are strong. In other words, a system of strongly interacting D-branes
in string theory is indistinguishable from a black hole. Strominger and Vafa analyzed such D-brane systems and
calculated the number of different ways of placing D-branes in spacetime so that their combined mass and
charge is equal to a given mass and charge for the resulting black hole. Their calculation reproduced the
Bekenstein–Hawking formula exactly, including the factor of 1/4.[60] Subsequent work by Strominger, Vafa,
and others refined the original calculations and gave the precise values of the "quantum corrections" needed to
describe very small black holes.[61][62]

The black holes that Strominger and Vafa considered in their original work were quite different from real
astrophysical black holes. One difference was that Strominger and Vafa considered only extremal black holes in
order to make the calculation tractable. These are defined as black holes with the lowest possible mass
compatible with a given charge.[63] Strominger and Vafa also restricted attention to black holes in five-
dimensional spacetime with unphysical supersymmetry.[64]

Although it was originally developed in this very particular and physically unrealistic context in string theory,
the entropy calculation of Strominger and Vafa has led to a qualitative understanding of how black hole entropy
can be accounted for in any theory of quantum gravity. Indeed, in 1998, Strominger argued that the original
result could be generalized to an arbitrary consistent theory of quantum gravity without relying on strings or
supersymmetry.[65] In collaboration with several other authors in 2010, he showed that some results on black
hole entropy could be extended to non-extremal astrophysical black holes.[66][67]

AdS/CFT correspondence
One approach to formulating string theory and studying its properties is provided by the anti-de Sitter/conformal
field theory (AdS/CFT) correspondence. This is a theoretical result that implies that string theory is in some
cases equivalent to a quantum field theory. In addition to providing insights into the mathematical structure of
string theory, the AdS/CFT correspondence has shed light on many aspects of quantum field theory in regimes
where traditional calculational techniques are ineffective.[6] The AdS/CFT correspondence was first proposed by
Juan Maldacena in late 1997.[68] Important aspects of the correspondence were elaborated in articles by Steven
Gubser, Igor Klebanov, and Alexander Markovich Polyakov,[69] and by Edward Witten.[70] By 2010,
Maldacena's article had over 7000 citations, becoming the most highly cited article in the field of high energy
physics.[b]

Overview of the correspondence

In the AdS/CFT correspondence, the geometry of spacetime is described in terms of a certain vacuum solution
of Einstein's equation called anti-de Sitter space.[6] In very elementary terms, anti-de Sitter space is a
mathematical model of spacetime in which the notion of distance between points (the metric) is different from
the notion of distance in ordinary Euclidean geometry. It is closely related to hyperbolic space, which can be

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viewed as a disk as illustrated on the left.[71] This image shows a

tessellation of a disk by triangles and squares. One can define the
distance between points of this disk in such a way that all the triangles
and squares are the same size and the circular outer boundary is infinitely
far from any point in the interior.[72]

One can imagine a stack of hyperbolic disks where each disk represents
the state of the universe at a given time. The resulting geometric object is
three-dimensional anti-de Sitter space.[71] It looks like a solid cylinder in
which any cross section is a copy of the hyperbolic disk. Time runs along
the vertical direction in this picture. The surface of this cylinder plays an
A tessellation of the hyperbolic important role in the AdS/CFT correspondence. As with the hyperbolic
plane by triangles and squares plane, anti-de Sitter space is curved in such a way that any point in the
interior is actually infinitely far from this boundary surface.[72]

This construction describes a hypothetical universe

with only two space dimensions and one time
dimension, but it can be generalized to any number
of dimensions. Indeed, hyperbolic space can have
more than two dimensions and one can "stack up"
copies of hyperbolic space to get higher-dimensional
models of anti-de Sitter space.[71]

An important feature of anti-de Sitter space is its

boundary (which looks like a cylinder in the case of
three-dimensional anti-de Sitter space). One property
of this boundary is that, within a small region on the
surface around any given point, it looks just like
Minkowski space, the model of spacetime used in
non-gravitational physics.[73] One can therefore
consider an auxiliary theory in which "spacetime" is
given by the boundary of anti-de Sitter space. This
observation is the starting point for AdS/CFT
Three-dimensional anti-de Sitter space is like a stack of
correspondence, which states that the boundary of hyperbolic disks, each one representing the state of the
anti-de Sitter space can be regarded as the universe at a given time. The resulting spacetime looks
"spacetime" for a quantum field theory. The claim is like a solid cylinder.
that this quantum field theory is equivalent to a
gravitational theory, such as string theory, in the bulk
anti-de Sitter space in the sense that there is a "dictionary" for translating entities and calculations in one theory
into their counterparts in the other theory. For example, a single particle in the gravitational theory might
correspond to some collection of particles in the boundary theory. In addition, the predictions in the two theories
are quantitatively identical so that if two particles have a 40 percent chance of colliding in the gravitational
theory, then the corresponding collections in the boundary theory would also have a 40 percent chance of
colliding.[74]

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Applications to quantum gravity

The discovery of the AdS/CFT correspondence was a major advance in physicists' understanding of string
theory and quantum gravity. One reason for this is that the correspondence provides a formulation of string
theory in terms of quantum field theory, which is well understood by comparison. Another reason is that it
provides a general framework in which physicists can study and attempt to resolve the paradoxes of black
holes.[53]

In 1975, Stephen Hawking published a calculation which suggested that black holes are not completely black
but emit a dim radiation due to quantum effects near the event horizon.[56] At first, Hawking's result posed a
problem for theorists because it suggested that black holes destroy information. More precisely, Hawking's
calculation seemed to conflict with one of the basic postulates of quantum mechanics, which states that physical
systems evolve in time according to the Schrödinger equation. This property is usually referred to as unitarity of
time evolution. The apparent contradiction between Hawking's calculation and the unitarity postulate of
quantum mechanics came to be known as the black hole information paradox.[75]

The AdS/CFT correspondence resolves the black hole information paradox, at least to some extent, because it
shows how a black hole can evolve in a manner consistent with quantum mechanics in some contexts. Indeed,
one can consider black holes in the context of the AdS/CFT correspondence, and any such black hole
corresponds to a configuration of particles on the boundary of anti-de Sitter space.[76] These particles obey the
usual rules of quantum mechanics and in particular evolve in a unitary fashion, so the black hole must also
evolve in a unitary fashion, respecting the principles of quantum mechanics.[77] In 2005, Hawking announced
that the paradox had been settled in favor of information conservation by the AdS/CFT correspondence, and he
suggested a concrete mechanism by which black holes might preserve information.[78]

Applications to nuclear physics

In addition to its applications to theoretical problems in quantum gravity,
the AdS/CFT correspondence has been applied to a variety of problems
in quantum field theory. One physical system that has been studied using
the AdS/CFT correspondence is the quark–gluon plasma, an exotic state
of matter produced in particle accelerators. This state of matter arises for
brief instants when heavy ions such as gold or lead nuclei are collided at
high energies. Such collisions cause the quarks that make up atomic
nuclei to deconfine at temperatures of approximately two trillion kelvin,
A magnet levitating above a high-
conditions similar to those present at around 10−11 seconds after the Big
temperature superconductor. Today
some physicists are working to
Bang.[79]
understand high-temperature
superconductivity using the
The physics of the quark–gluon plasma is governed by a theory called
AdS/CFT correspondence.[7] quantum chromodynamics, but this theory is mathematically intractable
in problems involving the quark–gluon plasma.[c] In an article appearing
in 2005, Đàm Thanh Sơn and his collaborators showed that the AdS/CFT
correspondence could be used to understand some aspects of the quark-gluon plasma by describing it in the
language of string theory.[80] By applying the AdS/CFT correspondence, Sơn and his collaborators were able to
describe the quark-gluon plasma in terms of black holes in five-dimensional spacetime. The calculation showed
that the ratio of two quantities associated with the quark-gluon plasma, the shear viscosity and volume density

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of entropy, should be approximately equal to a certain universal constant. In 2008, the predicted value of this
ratio for the quark-gluon plasma was confirmed at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National
Laboratory.[7][81]

Applications to condensed matter physics

The AdS/CFT correspondence has also been used to study aspects of condensed matter physics. Over the
decades, experimental condensed matter physicists have discovered a number of exotic states of matter,
including superconductors and superfluids. These states are described using the formalism of quantum field
theory, but some phenomena are difficult to explain using standard field theoretic techniques. Some condensed
matter theorists including Subir Sachdev hope that the AdS/CFT correspondence will make it possible to
describe these systems in the language of string theory and learn more about their behavior.[7]

So far some success has been achieved in using string theory methods to describe the transition of a superfluid
to an insulator. A superfluid is a system of electrically neutral atoms that flows without any friction. Such
systems are often produced in the laboratory using liquid helium, but recently experimentalists have developed
new ways of producing artificial superfluids by pouring trillions of cold atoms into a lattice of criss-crossing
lasers. These atoms initially behave as a superfluid, but as experimentalists increase the intensity of the lasers,
they become less mobile and then suddenly transition to an insulating state. During the transition, the atoms
behave in an unusual way. For example, the atoms slow to a halt at a rate that depends on the temperature and
on the Planck constant, the fundamental parameter of quantum mechanics, which does not enter into the
description of the other phases. This behavior has recently been understood by considering a dual description
where properties of the fluid are described in terms of a higher dimensional black hole.[8]

Phenomenology
In addition to being an idea of considerable theoretical interest, string theory provides a framework for
constructing models of real-world physics that combine general relativity and particle physics. Phenomenology
is the branch of theoretical physics in which physicists construct realistic models of nature from more abstract
theoretical ideas. String phenomenology is the part of string theory that attempts to construct realistic or semi-
realistic models based on string theory.

Partly because of theoretical and mathematical difficulties and partly because of the extremely high energies
needed to test these theories experimentally, there is so far no experimental evidence that would unambiguously
point to any of these models being a correct fundamental description of nature. This has led some in the
community to criticize these approaches to unification and question the value of continued research on these
problems.[12]

Particle physics
The currently accepted theory describing elementary particles and their interactions is known as the standard
model of particle physics. This theory provides a unified description of three of the fundamental forces of
nature: electromagnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces. Despite its remarkable success in explaining a

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wide range of physical phenomena, the standard model cannot be a complete description of reality. This is
because the standard model fails to incorporate the force of gravity and because of problems such as the
hierarchy problem and the inability to explain the structure of fermion masses or dark matter.

String theory has been used to construct a variety of models of particle physics going beyond the standard
model. Typically, such models are based on the idea of compactification. Starting with the ten- or eleven-
dimensional spacetime of string or M-theory, physicists postulate a shape for the extra dimensions. By choosing
this shape appropriately, they can construct models roughly similar to the standard model of particle physics,
together with additional undiscovered particles.[82] One popular way of deriving realistic physics from string
theory is to start with the heterotic theory in ten dimensions and assume that the six extra dimensions of
spacetime are shaped like a six-dimensional Calabi–Yau manifold. Such compactifications offer many ways of
extracting realistic physics from string theory. Other similar methods can be used to construct realistic or semi-
realistic models of our four-dimensional world based on M-theory.[83]

Cosmology
The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological model
for the universe from the earliest known periods through
its subsequent large-scale evolution. Despite its success in
explaining many observed features of the universe
including galactic redshifts, the relative abundance of light
elements such as hydrogen and helium, and the existence
of a cosmic microwave background, there are several
questions that remain unanswered. For example, the
A map of the cosmic microwave background
standard Big Bang model does not explain why the
produced by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy
universe appears to be the same in all directions, why it
Probe
appears flat on very large distance scales, or why certain
hypothesized particles such as magnetic monopoles are not
observed in experiments.[84]

Currently, the leading candidate for a theory going beyond the Big Bang is the theory of cosmic inflation.
Developed by Alan Guth and others in the 1980s, inflation postulates a period of extremely rapid accelerated
expansion of the universe prior to the expansion described by the standard Big Bang theory. The theory of
cosmic inflation preserves the successes of the Big Bang while providing a natural explanation for some of the
mysterious features of the universe.[85] The theory has also received striking support from observations of the
cosmic microwave background, the radiation that has filled the sky since around 380,000 years after the Big
Bang.[86]

In the theory of inflation, the rapid initial expansion of the universe is caused by a hypothetical particle called
the inflaton. The exact properties of this particle are not fixed by the theory but should ultimately be derived
from a more fundamental theory such as string theory.[87] Indeed, there have been a number of attempts to
identify an inflaton within the spectrum of particles described by string theory and to study inflation using string
theory. While these approaches might eventually find support in observational data such as measurements of the
cosmic microwave background, the application of string theory to cosmology is still in its early stages.[88]

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Connections to mathematics
In addition to influencing research in theoretical physics, string theory has stimulated a number of major
developments in pure mathematics. Like many developing ideas in theoretical physics, string theory does not at
present have a mathematically rigorous formulation in which all of its concepts can be defined precisely. As a
result, physicists who study string theory are often guided by physical intuition to conjecture relationships
between the seemingly different mathematical structures that are used to formalize different parts of the theory.
These conjectures are later proved by mathematicians, and in this way, string theory serves as a source of new
ideas in pure mathematics.[89]

Mirror symmetry
After Calabi–Yau manifolds had entered physics as a way to compactify
extra dimensions in string theory, many physicists began studying these
manifolds. In the late 1980s, several physicists noticed that given such a
compactification of string theory, it is not possible to reconstruct
uniquely a corresponding Calabi–Yau manifold.[90] Instead, two different
versions of string theory, type IIA and type IIB, can be compactified on
completely different Calabi–Yau manifolds giving rise to the same
physics. In this situation, the manifolds are called mirror manifolds, and
the relationship between the two physical theories is called mirror
symmetry.[28]
The Clebsch cubic is an example of
Regardless of whether Calabi–Yau compactifications of string theory a kind of geometric object called an
provide a correct description of nature, the existence of the mirror duality algebraic variety. A classical result
between different string theories has significant mathematical of enumerative geometry states that
there are exactly 27 straight lines
consequences. The Calabi–Yau manifolds used in string theory are of
that lie entirely on this surface.
interest in pure mathematics, and mirror symmetry allows
mathematicians to solve problems in enumerative geometry, a branch of
mathematics concerned with counting the numbers of solutions to geometric questions.[28][91]

Enumerative geometry studies a class of geometric objects called algebraic varieties which are defined by the
vanishing of polynomials. For example, the Clebsch cubic illustrated on the right is an algebraic variety defined
using a certain polynomial of degree three in four variables. A celebrated result of nineteenth-century
mathematicians Arthur Cayley and George Salmon states that there are exactly 27 straight lines that lie entirely
on such a surface.[92]

Generalizing this problem, one can ask how many lines can be drawn on a quintic Calabi–Yau manifold, such as
the one illustrated above, which is defined by a polynomial of degree five. This problem was solved by the
nineteenth-century German mathematician Hermann Schubert, who found that there are exactly 2,875 such
lines. In 1986, geometer Sheldon Katz proved that the number of curves, such as circles, that are defined by
polynomials of degree two and lie entirely in the quintic is 609,250.[93]

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By the year 1991, most of the classical problems of enumerative geometry had been solved and interest in
enumerative geometry had begun to diminish.[94] The field was reinvigorated in May 1991 when physicists
Philip Candelas, Xenia de la Ossa, Paul Green, and Linda Parkes showed that mirror symmetry could be used to
translate difficult mathematical questions about one Calabi–Yau manifold into easier questions about its
mirror.[95] In particular, they used mirror symmetry to show that a six-dimensional Calabi–Yau manifold can
contain exactly 317,206,375 curves of degree three.[94] In addition to counting degree-three curves, Candelas
and his collaborators obtained a number of more general results for counting rational curves which went far
beyond the results obtained by mathematicians.[96]

Originally, these results of Candelas were justified on physical grounds. However, mathematicians generally
prefer rigorous proofs that do not require an appeal to physical intuition. Inspired by physicists' work on mirror
symmetry, mathematicians have therefore constructed their own arguments proving the enumerative predictions
of mirror symmetry.[d] Today mirror symmetry is an active area of research in mathematics, and mathematicians
are working to develop a more complete mathematical understanding of mirror symmetry based on physicists'
intuition.[102] Major approaches to mirror symmetry include the homological mirror symmetry program of
Maxim Kontsevich[29] and the SYZ conjecture of Andrew Strominger, Shing-Tung Yau, and Eric Zaslow.[103]

Monstrous moonshine
Group theory is the branch of mathematics that studies the concept of
symmetry. For example, one can consider a geometric shape such as an
equilateral triangle. There are various operations that one can perform on
this triangle without changing its shape. One can rotate it through 120°,
240°, or 360°, or one can reflect in any of the lines labeled S0, S1, or S2
in the picture. Each of these operations is called a symmetry, and the
collection of these symmetries satisfies certain technical properties
making it into what mathematicians call a group. In this particular
example, the group is known as the dihedral group of order 6 because it
An equilateral triangle can be has six elements. A general group may describe finitely many or
rotated through 120°, 240°, or 360°, infinitely many symmetries; if there are only finitely many symmetries, it
or reflected in any of the three lines is called a finite group.[104]
pictured without changing its shape.
Mathematicians often strive for a classification (or list) of all
mathematical objects of a given type. It is generally believed that finite
groups are too diverse to admit a useful classification. A more modest but still challenging problem is to classify
all finite simple groups. These are finite groups that may be used as building blocks for constructing arbitrary
finite groups in the same way that prime numbers can be used to construct arbitrary whole numbers by taking
products.[e] One of the major achievements of contemporary group theory is the classification of finite simple
groups, a mathematical theorem that provides a list of all possible finite simple groups.[104]

This classification theorem identifies several infinite families of groups as well as 26 additional groups which
do not fit into any family. The latter groups are called the "sporadic" groups, and each one owes its existence to
a remarkable combination of circumstances. The largest sporadic group, the so-called monster group, has over
1053 elements, more than a thousand times the number of atoms in the Earth.[105]

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A seemingly unrelated construction is the j-function of

number theory. This object belongs to a special class of
functions called modular functions, whose graphs form a
certain kind of repeating pattern.[106] Although this
function appears in a branch of mathematics that seems
very different from the theory of finite groups, the two
subjects turn out to be intimately related. In the late 1970s,
mathematicians John McKay and John Thompson noticed
that certain numbers arising in the analysis of the monster
group (namely, the dimensions of its irreducible
representations) are related to numbers that appear in a
formula for the j-function (namely, the coefficients of its A graph of the j-function in the complex plane
Fourier series).[107] This relationship was further
developed by John Horton Conway and Simon Norton[108]
who called it monstrous moonshine because it seemed so far fetched.[109]

In 1992, Richard Borcherds constructed a bridge between the theory of modular functions and finite groups and,
in the process, explained the observations of McKay and Thompson.[110][111] Borcherds' work used ideas from
string theory in an essential way, extending earlier results of Igor Frenkel, James Lepowsky, and Arne
Meurman, who had realized the monster group as the symmetries of a particular version of string theory.[112] In
1998, Borcherds was awarded the Fields medal for his work.[113]

Since the 1990s, the connection between string theory and moonshine has led to further results in mathematics
and physics.[105] In 2010, physicists Tohru Eguchi, Hirosi Ooguri, and Yuji Tachikawa discovered connections
between a different sporadic group, the Mathieu group M24, and a certain version of string theory.[114] Miranda
Cheng, John Duncan, and Jeffrey A. Harvey proposed a generalization of this moonshine phenomenon called
umbral moonshine,[115] and their conjecture was proved mathematically by Duncan, Michael Griffin, and Ken
Ono.[116] Witten has also speculated that the version of string theory appearing in monstrous moonshine might
be related to a certain simplified model of gravity in three spacetime dimensions.[117]

History

Early results
Some of the structures reintroduced by string theory arose for the first time much earlier as part of the program
of classical unification started by Albert Einstein. The first person to add a fifth dimension to a theory of gravity
was Gunnar Nordström in 1914, who noted that gravity in five dimensions describes both gravity and
electromagnetism in four. Nordström attempted to unify electromagnetism with his theory of gravitation, which
was however superseded by Einstein's general relativity in 1919. Thereafter, German mathematician Theodor
Kaluza combined the fifth dimension with general relativity, and only Kaluza is usually credited with the idea.
In 1926, the Swedish physicist Oskar Klein gave a physical interpretation of the unobservable extra dimension
—it is wrapped into a small circle. Einstein introduced a non-symmetric metric tensor, while much later Brans
and Dicke added a scalar component to gravity. These ideas would be revived within string theory, where they
are demanded by consistency conditions.

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String theory was originally developed during the late 1960s and early 1970s as
a never completely successful theory of hadrons, the subatomic particles like the
proton and neutron that feel the strong interaction. In the 1960s, Geoffrey Chew
and Steven Frautschi discovered that the mesons make families called Regge
trajectories with masses related to spins in a way that was later understood by
Yoichiro Nambu, Holger Bech Nielsen and Leonard Susskind to be the
relationship expected from rotating strings. Chew advocated making a theory for
the interactions of these trajectories that did not presume that they were
composed of any fundamental particles, but would construct their interactions
from self-consistency conditions on the S-matrix. The S-matrix approach was
started by Werner Heisenberg in the 1940s as a way of constructing a theory that
did not rely on the local notions of space and time, which Heisenberg believed
Leonard Susskind break down at the nuclear scale. While the scale was off by many orders of
magnitude, the approach he advocated was ideally suited for a theory of quantum
gravity.

Working with experimental data, R. Dolen, D. Horn and C. Schmid developed some sum rules for hadron
exchange. When a particle and antiparticle scatter, virtual particles can be exchanged in two qualitatively
different ways. In the s-channel, the two particles annihilate to make temporary intermediate states that fall apart
into the final state particles. In the t-channel, the particles exchange intermediate states by emission and
absorption. In field theory, the two contributions add together, one giving a continuous background contribution,
the other giving peaks at certain energies. In the data, it was clear that the peaks were stealing from the
background—the authors interpreted this as saying that the t-channel contribution was dual to the s-channel one,
meaning both described the whole amplitude and included the other.

The result was widely advertised by Murray Gell-Mann, leading Gabriele

Veneziano to construct a scattering amplitude that had the property of Dolen–
Horn–Schmid duality, later renamed world-sheet duality. The amplitude needed
poles where the particles appear, on straight-line trajectories, and there is a
special mathematical function whose poles are evenly spaced on half the real
line—the gamma function—which was widely used in Regge theory. By
manipulating combinations of gamma functions, Veneziano was able to find a
consistent scattering amplitude with poles on straight lines, with mostly positive
residues, which obeyed duality and had the appropriate Regge scaling at high
energy. The amplitude could fit near-beam scattering data as well as other Regge
type fits and had a suggestive integral representation that could be used for Gabriele Veneziano
generalization.

Over the next years, hundreds of physicists worked to complete the bootstrap program for this model, with
many surprises. Veneziano himself discovered that for the scattering amplitude to describe the scattering of a
particle that appears in the theory, an obvious self-consistency condition, the lightest particle must be a tachyon.
Miguel Virasoro and Joel Shapiro found a different amplitude now understood to be that of closed strings, while
Ziro Koba and Holger Nielsen generalized Veneziano's integral representation to multiparticle scattering.
Veneziano and Sergio Fubini introduced an operator formalism for computing the scattering amplitudes that was
a forerunner of world-sheet conformal theory, while Virasoro understood how to remove the poles with wrong-

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sign residues using a constraint on the states. Claud Lovelace calculated a loop amplitude, and noted that there
is an inconsistency unless the dimension of the theory is 26. Charles Thorn, Peter Goddard and Richard Brower
went on to prove that there are no wrong-sign propagating states in dimensions less than or equal to 26.

In 1969–1970, Yoichiro Nambu, Holger Bech Nielsen, and Leonard Susskind recognized that the theory could
be given a description in space and time in terms of strings. The scattering amplitudes were derived
systematically from the action principle by Peter Goddard, Jeffrey Goldstone, Claudio Rebbi, and Charles
Thorn, giving a space-time picture to the vertex operators introduced by Veneziano and Fubini and a
geometrical interpretation to the Virasoro conditions.

In 1971, Pierre Ramond added fermions to the model, which led him to formulate a two-dimensional
supersymmetry to cancel the wrong-sign states. John Schwarz and André Neveu added another sector to the
fermi theory a short time later. In the fermion theories, the critical dimension was 10. Stanley Mandelstam
formulated a world sheet conformal theory for both the bose and fermi case, giving a two-dimensional field
theoretic path-integral to generate the operator formalism. Michio Kaku and Keiji Kikkawa gave a different
formulation of the bosonic string, as a string field theory, with infinitely many particle types and with fields
taking values not on points, but on loops and curves.

In 1974, Tamiaki Yoneya discovered that all the known string theories included a massless spin-two particle that
obeyed the correct Ward identities to be a graviton. John Schwarz and Joël Scherk came to the same conclusion
and made the bold leap to suggest that string theory was a theory of gravity, not a theory of hadrons. They
reintroduced Kaluza–Klein theory as a way of making sense of the extra dimensions. At the same time, quantum
chromodynamics was recognized as the correct theory of hadrons, shifting the attention of physicists and
apparently leaving the bootstrap program in the dustbin of history.

String theory eventually made it out of the dustbin, but for the following decade, all work on the theory was
completely ignored. Still, the theory continued to develop at a steady pace thanks to the work of a handful of
devotees. Ferdinando Gliozzi, Joël Scherk, and David Olive realized in 1977 that the original Ramond and
Neveu Schwarz-strings were separately inconsistent and needed to be combined. The resulting theory did not
have a tachyon and was proven to have space-time supersymmetry by John Schwarz and Michael Green in
1984. The same year, Alexander Polyakov gave the theory a modern path integral formulation, and went on to
develop conformal field theory extensively. In 1979, Daniel Friedan showed that the equations of motions of
string theory, which are generalizations of the Einstein equations of general relativity, emerge from the
renormalization group equations for the two-dimensional field theory. Schwarz and Green discovered T-duality,
and constructed two superstring theories—IIA and IIB related by T-duality, and type I theories with open
strings. The consistency conditions had been so strong, that the entire theory was nearly uniquely determined,
with only a few discrete choices.

First superstring revolution

In the early 1980s, Edward Witten discovered that most theories of quantum gravity could not accommodate
chiral fermions like the neutrino. This led him, in collaboration with Luis Álvarez-Gaumé, to study violations of
the conservation laws in gravity theories with anomalies, concluding that type I string theories were
inconsistent. Green and Schwarz discovered a contribution to the anomaly that Witten and Alvarez-Gaumé had
missed, which restricted the gauge group of the type I string theory to be SO(32). In coming to understand this

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calculation, Edward Witten became convinced that string theory was truly a
consistent theory of gravity, and he became a high-profile advocate. Following
Witten's lead, between 1984 and 1986, hundreds of physicists started to work in
this field, and this is sometimes called the first superstring revolution.

During this period, David Gross, Jeffrey Harvey, Emil Martinec, and Ryan Rohm
discovered heterotic strings. The gauge group of these closed strings was two
copies of E8, and either copy could easily and naturally include the standard
model. Philip Candelas, Gary Horowitz, Andrew Strominger and Edward Witten
found that the Calabi–Yau manifolds are the compactifications that preserve a
realistic amount of supersymmetry, while Lance Dixon and others worked out
the physical properties of orbifolds, distinctive geometrical singularities allowed Edward Witten
in string theory. Cumrun Vafa generalized T-duality from circles to arbitrary
manifolds, creating the mathematical field of mirror symmetry. Daniel Friedan,
Emil Martinec and Stephen Shenker further developed the covariant quantization of the superstring using
conformal field theory techniques. David Gross and Vipul Periwal discovered that string perturbation theory
was divergent. Stephen Shenker showed it diverged much faster than in field theory suggesting that new non-
perturbative objects were missing.

In the 1990s, Joseph Polchinski discovered that the theory requires higher-
dimensional objects, called D-branes and identified these with the black-hole
solutions of supergravity. These were understood to be the new objects suggested
by the perturbative divergences, and they opened up a new field with rich
mathematical structure. It quickly became clear that D-branes and other p-
branes, not just strings, formed the matter content of the string theories, and the
physical interpretation of the strings and branes was revealed—they are a type of
black hole. Leonard Susskind had incorporated the holographic principle of
Gerardus 't Hooft into string theory, identifying the long highly excited string
states with ordinary thermal black hole states. As suggested by 't Hooft, the
fluctuations of the black hole horizon, the world-sheet or world-volume theory,
Joseph Polchinski describes not only the degrees of freedom of the black hole, but all nearby
objects too.

Second superstring revolution

In 1995, at the annual conference of string theorists at the University of Southern California (USC), Edward
Witten gave a speech on string theory that in essence united the five string theories that existed at the time, and
giving birth to a new 11-dimensional theory called M-theory. M-theory was also foreshadowed in the work of
Paul Townsend at approximately the same time. The flurry of activity that began at this time is sometimes called
the second superstring revolution.[31]

During this period, Tom Banks, Willy Fischler, Stephen Shenker and Leonard Susskind formulated matrix
theory, a full holographic description of M-theory using IIA D0 branes.[48] This was the first definition of string
theory that was fully non-perturbative and a concrete mathematical realization of the holographic principle. It is
an example of a gauge-gravity duality and is now understood to be a special case of the AdS/CFT
correspondence. Andrew Strominger and Cumrun Vafa calculated the entropy of certain configurations of D-

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branes and found agreement with the semi-classical answer for extreme charged
black holes.[59] Petr Hořava and Witten found the eleven-dimensional
formulation of the heterotic string theories, showing that orbifolds solve the
chirality problem. Witten noted that the effective description of the physics of D-
branes at low energies is by a supersymmetric gauge theory, and found
geometrical interpretations of mathematical structures in gauge theory that he
and Nathan Seiberg had earlier discovered in terms of the location of the branes.

In 1997, Juan Maldacena noted that the low energy excitations of a theory near a
black hole consist of objects close to the horizon, which for extreme charged
black holes looks like an anti-de Sitter space.[68] He noted that in this limit the
gauge theory describes the string excitations near the branes. So he hypothesized Juan Maldacena
that string theory on a near-horizon extreme-charged black-hole geometry, an
anti-de Sitter space times a sphere with flux, is equally well described by the
low-energy limiting gauge theory, the N = 4 supersymmetric Yang–Mills theory. This hypothesis, which is
called the AdS/CFT correspondence, was further developed by Steven Gubser, Igor Klebanov and Alexander
Polyakov,[69] and by Edward Witten,[70] and it is now well-accepted. It is a concrete realization of the
holographic principle, which has far-reaching implications for black holes, locality and information in physics,
as well as the nature of the gravitational interaction.[53] Through this relationship, string theory has been shown
to be related to gauge theories like quantum chromodynamics and this has led to a more quantitative
understanding of the behavior of hadrons, bringing string theory back to its roots.

Criticism

Number of solutions
To construct models of particle physics based on string theory, physicists typically begin by specifying a shape
for the extra dimensions of spacetime. Each of these different shapes corresponds to a different possible
universe, or "vacuum state", with a different collection of particles and forces. String theory as it is currently
understood has an enormous number of vacuum states, typically estimated to be around 10500, and these might
be sufficiently diverse to accommodate almost any phenomenon that might be observed at low energies.[118]

Many critics of string theory have expressed concerns about the large number of possible universes described by
string theory. In his book Not Even Wrong, Peter Woit, a lecturer in the mathematics department at Columbia
University, has argued that the large number of different physical scenarios renders string theory vacuous as a
framework for constructing models of particle physics. According to Woit,

The possible existence of, say, 10500 consistent different vacuum states for superstring theory
probably destroys the hope of using the theory to predict anything. If one picks among this large set
just those states whose properties agree with present experimental observations, it is likely there still
will be such a large number of these that one can get just about whatever value one wants for the
results of any new observation.[119]

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Some physicists believe this large number of solutions is actually a virtue because it may allow a natural
anthropic explanation of the observed values of physical constants, in particular the small value of the
cosmological constant.[119] The anthropic principle is the idea that some of the numbers appearing in the laws of
physics are not fixed by any fundamental principle but must be compatible with the evolution of intelligent life.
In 1987, Steven Weinberg published an article in which he argued that the cosmological constant could not have
been too large, or else galaxies and intelligent life would not have been able to develop.[120] Weinberg suggested
that there might be a huge number of possible consistent universes, each with a different value of the
cosmological constant, and observations indicate a small value of the cosmological constant only because
humans happen to live in a universe that has allowed intelligent life, and hence observers, to exist.[121]

String theorist Leonard Susskind has argued that string theory provides a natural anthropic explanation of the
small value of the cosmological constant.[122] According to Susskind, the different vacuum states of string
theory might be realized as different universes within a larger multiverse. The fact that the observed universe
has a small cosmological constant is just a tautological consequence of the fact that a small value is required for
life to exist.[123] Many prominent theorists and critics have disagreed with Susskind's conclusions.[124]
According to Woit, "in this case [anthropic reasoning] is nothing more than an excuse for failure. Speculative
scientific ideas fail not just when they make incorrect predictions, but also when they turn out to be vacuous and
incapable of predicting anything."[125]

Compatibility with dark energy

It remains unknown whether string theory is compatible with a metastable, positive cosmological constant.
Some putative examples of such solutions do exist, such as the model described by Kachru et al. in 2003.[126] In
2018, a group of four physicists advanced a controversial conjecture which would imply that no such universe
exists. This is contrary to some popular models of dark energy such as Λ-CDM, which requires a positive
vacuum energy. However, string theory is likely compatible with certain types of quintessence, where dark
energy is caused by a new field with exotic properties.[127]

Background independence
One of the fundamental properties of Einstein's general theory of relativity is that it is background independent,
meaning that the formulation of the theory does not in any way privilege a particular spacetime geometry.[128]

One of the main criticisms of string theory from early on is that it is not manifestly background-independent. In
string theory, one must typically specify a fixed reference geometry for spacetime, and all other possible
geometries are described as perturbations of this fixed one. In his book The Trouble With Physics, physicist Lee
Smolin of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics claims that this is the principal weakness of string
theory as a theory of quantum gravity, saying that string theory has failed to incorporate this important insight
from general relativity.[129]

Others have disagreed with Smolin's characterization of string theory. In a review of Smolin's book, string
theorist Joseph Polchinski writes

[Smolin] is mistaking an aspect of the mathematical language being used for one of the physics being
described. New physical theories are often discovered using a mathematical language that is not the
most suitable for them... In string theory, it has always been clear that the physics is background-

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independent even if the language being used is not, and the search for a more suitable language
continues. Indeed, as Smolin belatedly notes, [AdS/CFT] provides a solution to this problem, one that
is unexpected and powerful.[130]

Polchinski notes that an important open problem in quantum gravity is to develop holographic descriptions of
gravity which do not require the gravitational field to be asymptotically anti-de Sitter.[130] Smolin has responded
by saying that the AdS/CFT correspondence, as it is currently understood, may not be strong enough to resolve
all concerns about background independence.[131]

Sociology of science
Since the superstring revolutions of the 1980s and 1990s, string theory has been one of the dominant paradigms
of high energy theoretical physics.[132] Some string theorists have expressed the view that there does not exist
an equally successful alternative theory addressing the deep questions of fundamental physics. In an interview
from 1987, Nobel laureate David Gross made the following controversial comments about the reasons for the
popularity of string theory:

The most important [reason] is that there are no other good ideas around. That's what gets most people
into it. When people started to get interested in string theory they didn't know anything about it. In
fact, the first reaction of most people is that the theory is extremely ugly and unpleasant, at least that
was the case a few years ago when the understanding of string theory was much less developed. It was
difficult for people to learn about it and to be turned on. So I think the real reason why people have
got attracted by it is because there is no other game in town. All other approaches of constructing
grand unified theories, which were more conservative to begin with, and only gradually became more
and more radical, have failed, and this game hasn't failed yet.[133]

Several other high-profile theorists and commentators have expressed similar views, suggesting that there are no
viable alternatives to string theory.[134]

Many critics of string theory have commented on this state of affairs. In his book criticizing string theory, Peter
Woit views the status of string theory research as unhealthy and detrimental to the future of fundamental
physics. He argues that the extreme popularity of string theory among theoretical physicists is partly a
consequence of the financial structure of academia and the fierce competition for scarce resources.[135] In his
book The Road to Reality, mathematical physicist Roger Penrose expresses similar views, stating "The often
frantic competitiveness that this ease of communication engenders leads to bandwagon effects, where
researchers fear to be left behind if they do not join in."[136] Penrose also claims that the technical difficulty of
modern physics forces young scientists to rely on the preferences of established researchers, rather than forging
new paths of their own.[137] Lee Smolin expresses a slightly different position in his critique, claiming that
string theory grew out of a tradition of particle physics which discourages speculation about the foundations of
physics, while his preferred approach, loop quantum gravity, encourages more radical thinking. According to
Smolin,

String theory is a powerful, well-motivated idea and deserves much of the work that has been devoted
to it. If it has so far failed, the principal reason is that its intrinsic flaws are closely tied to its strengths
—and, of course, the story is unfinished, since string theory may well turn out to be part of the truth.
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The real question is not why we have expended so much energy on string theory but why we haven't
expended nearly enough on alternative approaches.[138]

Smolin goes on to offer a number of prescriptions for how scientists might encourage a greater diversity of
approaches to quantum gravity research.[139]

Notes
a. For example, in the context of the AdS/CFT correspondence, theorists often formulate and study
theories of gravity in unphysical numbers of spacetime dimensions.
b. "Top Cited Articles during 2010 in hep-th" (http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2010/eprint
s/to_hep-th_annual.shtml). Retrieved 25 July 2013.
c. More precisely, one cannot apply the methods of perturbative quantum field theory.
d. Two independent mathematical proofs of mirror symmetry were given by Givental[97][98] and Lian
et al.[99][100][101]
e. More precisely, a nontrivial group is called simple if its only normal subgroups are the trivial group
and the group itself. The Jordan–Hölder theorem exhibits finite simple groups as the building
blocks for all finite groups.

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Bibliography
Becker, Katrin; Becker, Melanie; Schwarz, John (2007). String theory and M-theory: A modern
introduction. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-86069-7.
Duff, Michael (1998). "The theory formerly known as strings". Scientific American. 278 (2): 64–9.
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Gannon, Terry. Moonshine Beyond the Monster: The Bridge Connecting Algebra, Modular Forms,
and Physics. Cambridge University Press.
Hori, Kentaro; Katz, Sheldon; Klemm, Albrecht; Pandharipande, Rahul; Thomas, Richard; Vafa,
Cumrun; Vakil, Ravi; Zaslow, Eric, eds. (2003). Mirror Symmetry (https://web.archive.org/web/200
60919020706/http://math.stanford.edu/~vakil/files/mirrorfinal.pdf) (PDF). Clay Mathematics
Monographs. Vol. 1. American Mathematical Society. ISBN 978-0-8218-2955-4. Archived from the
original (http://math.stanford.edu/~vakil/files/mirrorfinal.pdf) (PDF) on 2006-09-19.
Maldacena, Juan (2005). "The Illusion of Gravity" (https://web.archive.org/web/20141101181409/h
ttp://www.sns.ias.edu/~malda/sciam-maldacena-3a.pdf) (PDF). Scientific American. 293 (5): 56–
63. Bibcode:2005SciAm.293e..56M (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2005SciAm.293e..56M).
doi:10.1038/scientificamerican1105-56 (https://doi.org/10.1038%2Fscientificamerican1105-56).
PMID 16318027 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16318027). Archived from the original (http://ww
w.sns.ias.edu/~malda/sciam-maldacena-3a.pdf) (PDF) on November 1, 2014. Retrieved
29 December 2016.
Penrose, Roger (2005). The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe (http
s://archive.org/details/roadtorealitycom00penr_0). Knopf. ISBN 978-0-679-45443-4.
Smolin, Lee (2006). The Trouble with Physics: The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of a Science,
and What Comes Next. New York: Houghton Mifflin Co. ISBN 978-0-618-55105-7.
Wald, Robert (1984). General Relativity (https://archive.org/details/generalrelativit0000wald).
University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-87033-5.
Woit, Peter (2006). Not Even Wrong: The Failure of String Theory and the Search for Unity in
Physical Law (https://archive.org/details/notevenwrongfail00woit/page/105). Basic Books. p. 105
(https://archive.org/details/notevenwrongfail00woit/page/105). ISBN 978-0-465-09275-8.
Yau, Shing-Tung; Nadis, Steve (2010). The Shape of Inner Space: String Theory and the
Geometry of the Universe's Hidden Dimensions. Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-02023-2.
Zwiebach, Barton (2009). A First Course in String Theory. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-
0-521-88032-9.

Further reading

Popular science
Greene, Brian (2003). The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for
the Ultimate Theory. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-05858-1.

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Greene, Brian (2004). The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality. New
York: Alfred A. Knopf. Bibcode:2004fcst.book.....G (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2004fcst.boo
k.....G). ISBN 978-0-375-41288-2.
Gubser, Steven Scott (2010). The Little Book of String Theory. Princeton, N. J.: Princeton
University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-14289-0.
Penrose, Roger (2005). The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe.
Knopf. ISBN 978-0-679-45443-4.
Smolin, Lee (2006). The Trouble with Physics: The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of a Science,
and What Comes Next. New York: Houghton Mifflin Co. ISBN 978-0-618-55105-7.
Woit, Peter (2006). Not Even Wrong: The Failure of String Theory And the Search for Unity in
Physical Law. London, England: Jonathan Cape &: New York: Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-
09275-8.

Textbooks
Becker, K.; Becker, M.; Schwarz, J. H. (2006). String Theory and M-Theory: A Modern
Introduction. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521860697.
Blumenhagen, R.; Lüst, D.; Theisen, S. (2012). Basic Concepts of String Theory. Springer.
ISBN 978-3642294969.
Green, Michael; Schwarz, John; Witten, Edward (2012). Superstring Theory. Vol. 1: Introduction.
Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1107029118.
Green, Michael; Schwarz, John; Witten, Edward (2012). Superstring Theory. Vol. 2: Loop
amplitudes, anomalies and phenomenology. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1107029132.
Ibáñez, L.E.; Uranga, A.M. (2012). String Theory and Particle Physics: An Introduction to String
Phenomenology. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521517522.
Kiritsis, E. (2019). String Theory in a Nutshell. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0691155791.
Ortín, T. (2015). Gravity and Strings. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521768139.
Polchinski, Joseph (1998). String Theory. Vol. 1: An Introduction to the Bosonic String. Cambridge
University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-63303-1.
Polchinski, Joseph (1998). String Theory. Vol. 2: Superstring Theory and Beyond. Cambridge
University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-63304-8.
West, P. (2012). Introduction to Strings and Branes. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-
0521817479.
Zwiebach, Barton (2009). A First Course in String Theory. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-
0-521-88032-9.

External links
bbc-horizon: parallel-uni (https://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2001/paralleluni.shtml)—2002
feature documentary by BBC Horizon, episode "Parallel Universes", focuses on history and
emergence of M-theory, and scientists involved.
pbs.org-nova: elegant-uni (https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/physics/elegant-universe.html)—2003
Emmy Award–winning, three-hour miniseries by Nova with Brian Greene, adapted from his The
Elegant Universe (original PBS broadcast dates: October 28, 8–10 p.m. and November 4, 8–9
p.m., 2003).

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=String_theory&oldid=1274188294"

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