STRING THEORY STUDENT SEMINAR 2006

Jan de Boer, Jan Pieter van der Schaar

This seminar will present an introduction to string theory.
location

 

room I.201
Tuesday May 9: room E.151
Tuesday May 16: room C.210
Tuesday May 23: no class
Tuesday May 30: room C.210 (last class)
dates Thursdays from 09.00-12.00
From May 9 onwards on Tuesdays from 09.00-12.00.
lecturers Jan de Boer (jdeboer[at]science.uva.nl)
Jan Pieter van der Schaar (jpschaar[at]science.uva.nl)
literature B. Zwiebach, String Theory
B. Schellekens, conformal field theory (postscript file)
May 9, all read Schellekens pp 1-29
do these exercises ( ps, pdf )
May 9, lect 1 discuss Schellekens pp 1-17
discuss relation CFT vs string theory
see e.g. chap 21 of Zwiebach
May 9, lect 2 discuss Schellekens pp 18-29
discuss radial quantization
discuss Operator Product Expansion
see e.g. S. Weinberg, The Quantum Theory
of Fields vol II
, chapter 20
May 16, all read Schellekens pp 30-63
do these exercises ( ps, pdf )
do this exercise from last year
May 16, lect 1 discuss Schellekens pp 30-51
discuss relation CFT-statistical mechanics
see e.g. these notes
May 16, lect 2 discuss Schellekens pp 51-63
discuss string perturbation theory
discuss moduli space of Riemann surfaces
discuss modular invariance
see e.g. Zwiebach chapter 22
see e.g. Polchinski, String Theory, par 3.1.
see e.g. Green, Schwarz, Witten, String Theory, volume 1.
May 30, all read Polchinski section 3.7 and 8.1 (will be handed out)
do these exercises ( ps, pdf )