arXiv research

There is an interpretation of open string field theory in algebraic topology. An interpretation of closed string field theory can be deduced from this open string theory to obtain as well the interpretation of open and closed string field theory combined.

We derive a recursion relation for hyperbolic string vertices and apply it to string field theory.

We construct a cut-off version of nonpertubative closed Bosonic string field theory in the light-cone gauge with imaginary string coupling constant. We show that the partition function is a continuous function of the string coupling constant, and conjecture a relation between the formal power series expansion of this p…

Motivated by the Moore-Segal axioms for an open-closed topological field theory, we consider planar open string topological field theories. We rigorously define a category 2Thick whose objects and morphisms can be thought of as open strings and diffeomorphism classes of planar open string worldsheets. Just as the categ…

String vertices proven in hyperbolic geometry, unique up to transformations.

Extends string-net theory to 3D TQFT via surface graphs and surgery.

We prove that the modular operad of diffeomorphism classes of Riemann surfaces with both `open' and `closed' boundary components, in the sense of string field theory, is the modular completion of its genus 0 part quotiented by the Cardy condition. We also provide a finitary presentation of a version of this modular two…

Smooth FFT from B-fields and D-branes.

Identifies all perturbative vacua in bosonic string theory.

Recent years have seen noteworthy progress in the mathematical formulation of quantum field theory and perturbative string theory. We give a brief survey of these developments. It serves as an introduction to the more detailed collection "Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Field Theory and Perturbative String Theory".

WZW models are abstract conformal field theories with an infinite dimensional symmetry which accounts for their integrability, and at the same time they have a sigma model description of closed string propagation on group manifolds which, in turn, endows the models with an intuitive geometric meaning. We exploit this d…

Cohomotopy charge quantization implies String structure on M5-branes.

Defines new canonical lifts for field theories, analyzing Klein-Gordon, Polyakov string, and Einstein-Cartan gravity.

The data of a "2D field theory with a closed string compactification" is an equivariant chain level action of a cell decomposition of the union of all moduli spaces of punctured Riemann surfaces with each component compactified as a pseudomanifold with boundary. The axioms on the data are contained in the following ass…

Quantum surgery formulas link statistics and topology.

Derives path integrals for perturbative strings on various backgrounds.

We propose an investigation of stability of vacua in string theory by studying their stability with respect to a (suitable) world-sheet renormalization group (RG) flow. We prove geometric stability of (Euclidean) anti-de Sitter (AdS) space (i.e., $\mathbf{H}^n$) with respect to the simplest RG flow in closed string the…

We prove that the open topological string partition function on a D-brane configuration in a Calabi-Yau manifold X takes the form of a closed topological string partition function on a different Calabi-Yau manifold X_b. This identification shows that the physics of D-branes in an arbitrary background X of topological s…

Introduces noncommutative geometry for modeling quantum spacetime.

Researchers find minimal-area metrics on surfaces with constraints.

We define string geometry: spaces of superstrings including the interactions, their topologies, charts, and metrics. Trajectories in asymptotic processes on a space of strings reproduce the right moduli space of the super Riemann surfaces in a target manifold. Based on the string geometry, we define Einstein-Hilbert ac…

The most general gauge-invariant marginal deformation of four-dimensional abelian BF-type topological field theory is studied. It is shown that the deformed quantum field theory is topological and that its observables compute, in addition to the usual linking numbers, smooth intersection indices of immersed surfaces wh…

We apply the geometric-topology surgery theory on spacetime manifolds to study the constraints of quantum statistics data in 2+1 and 3+1 spacetime dimensions. First, we introduce the fusion data for worldline and worldsheet operators capable creating anyon excitations of particles and strings, well-defined in gapped st…

This paper is an exposition of the new subject of String Topology. We present an introduction to this exciting new area, as well as a survey of some of the latest developments, and our views about future directions of research. We begin with reviewing the seminal paper of Chas and Sullivan, which started String Topolog…

String backgrounds yield simplified Hull-Strominger system solutions.

Using probabilistic methods, we first define Liouville quantum field theory on Riemann surfaces of genus $\mathbf{g}\geq 2$ and show that it is a conformal field theory. We use the partition function of Liouville quantum field theory to give a mathematical sense to Polyakov's partition function of noncritical bosonic s…

Develops a new geometric framework for field theories with dissipation.

Develops gluing theory for contact instantons and pseudoholomorphic curves.

We present a geometric approach to the field theory with higher order anisotropic interactions. The concepts of higher order space, or locally anisotropic, space (in brief, h-space, or la-space) are introduced as general ones for various types of higher order extensions of Lagrange and Finsler geometry and higher dimen…

An introduction into the theory of locally anisotropic spaces (modelled as vector bundles provided with compatible nonlinear and distinguished linear connections and metric structures and containing as particular cases different types of Kaluza--Klein and/or extensions of Lagrange and Finsler spaces) is presented. The …

The string bracket introduced by Chas and Sullivan [math.GT/9911159] is reinterpreted from the point of view of topological field theories in the Batalin-Vilkovisky or BRST formalisms. Namely, topological action functionals for gauge fields (generalizing Chern-Simons and BF theories) are considered together with genera…

New geometries defined for string models, filling gaps in the literature.

The closed string model in the background gravity field is considered as a bi-Hamiltonian system in assumption that string model is the integrable model for particular kind of the background fields. The dual nonlocal Poisson brackets(PB), depending of the background fields and of their derivatives, are obtained. The in…

New theory connects string theory to swampland distance conjecture.

In the background effective field theory of heterotic string theory, the Green-Schwarz anomaly cancellation mechanism plays a key role. Here we reinterpret it and its magnetic dual version in terms of differential twisted String- and differential twisted Fivebrane-structures that generalize the notion of Spin-structure…

Survey of geometric flows from unified string theories.

We synthesize and extend the previous ideas about appearance of both noncommutative and Finsler geometry in string theory with nonvanishing B--field and/or anholonomic (super) frame structures \cite{vstring,vstr2,vnonc,vncf}. There are investigated the limits to the Einstein gravity and string generalizations containin…

This paper explains the conjectured algebraic duality between genus zero Gromov-Witten theory and genus zero "Closed String topology". This duality in another perspective is discussed on page 87 of the book "Frobenius manifold, quantum cohomology, and moduli spaces" (by Yuri Manin). This paper also discusses Fulton Mac…

We formulate differential cohomology and Chern-Weil theory -- the theory of connections on fiber bundles and of gauge fields -- abstractly in the context of a certain class of higher toposes that we call "cohesive". Cocycles in this differential cohomology classify higher principal bundles equipped with cohesive struct…

Let M be a closed, connected manifold, and LM its loop space. In this paper we describe closed string topology operations in h_*(LM), where h_* is a generalized homology theory that supports an orientation of M. We will show that these operations give h_*(LM) the structure of a unital, commutative Frobenius algebra wit…

A Gauss paragraph is a combinatorial formulation of a generic closed curve with multiple components on some surface. A virtual string is a collection of circles with arrows that represent the crossings of such a curve. Every closed curve has an underlying virtual string and every virtual string has an underlying Gauss …

The actions, anomalies, and quantization conditions allow the M2-brane and the M5-brane to support, in a natural way, structures beyond Spin on their worldvolumes. The main examples are twisted String structures. This also extends to twisted String^c structures, which we introduce and relate to twisted String structure…

Study on Alexander polynomials in braids, linking number theory and topology.

Chas and Sullivan have defined an intersection-type product on the homology of the free loop space LM of an oriented manifold M. In this paper we show how to extend this construction to a topological conformal field theory of degree d. In particular, we get operations on the homology of LM which are parameterized by th…

Motivated by ideas from string theory and quantum field theory new invariants of knots and 3-dimensional manifolds have been constructed from complex algebraic structures such as Hopf algebras (Reshetikhin and Turaev), monoidal categories with additional structure (Turaev and Yetter), and modular functors (Walker and K…

Given a smooth closed manifold M with a family {L_i} of closed submanifolds, we consider the free loop space LM and the spaces PM(L_i,L_j) of open strings (paths g:[0,1]->M with g(0) in L_i, and g(1) in L_j). We construct string topology operations resulting in an open-closed TQFT on the family (h_*(LM),h_*(PM(L_i,L_j)…

This thesis proposes a global geometric formulation of Extended Field Theories.

String-net models explore non-spherical fusion categories, revealing new spin structures and representations.