Strings, Branes, and Higher Spin Theories

该奖项资助了德克萨斯农工大学的Katrin Becker、Melanie Becker和Ergin Sezgin教授的研究活动。弦理论需要引力，并扩展了粒子物理和大统一理论的标准模型。它的数学一致性需要的不仅仅是四个时空维度，而处理额外维度的方式反过来决定了观察到的粒子和力。因此，了解额外维度的几何和拓扑在观察到的四维时空上留下的印记是很重要的。PI将探索与这些问题相关的弦理论和超重力的基本方面。因此，该项目通过促进科学进步和寻找描述量子引力未知领域的新物理定律来促进国家利益。该项目还被设想为通过促进弦理论与数学之间的接口而产生更广泛的影响。这些pi还将为博士后和学生提供重要的培训，并打算就他们的研究成果进行公开讲座和组织研讨会。从技术上讲，pi的目的是在斜率参数及其在超空间中的表述中构造不同弦论和m论紧化对各阶的全时空有效作用。他们的目标是用物理学来解决数学中长期存在的问题(例如：寻找具有特殊完整的流形的“calabi - you型”定理或寻找镜像对称的类似物)。此外，PI将研究高自旋理论的作用原理的构建，其量子化，高自旋不变泛函和高自旋黑洞。他们还将学习弯曲背景下的超对称场论，不同维度的超共形场论，以及弦和膜对偶对称性的几何描述。

This award funds the research activities of Professors Katrin Becker, Melanie Becker, and Ergin Sezgin at Texas A&M University.String theory requires gravity and extends the standard model of particle physics and grand unified theories. Its mathematical consistency requires more than the four spacetime dimensions, and the ways in which the extra dimensions are dealth with in turn determines the observed particles and forces. Therefore, it is important to understand the imprints left by the geometry and topology of the extra dimensions on the observed four-dimensional spacetime. The PI's will explore fundamental aspects of string theory and supergravity as they relate to these issues. As such, this project advances the national interest by promoting progress in science and the search for new physical laws describing uncharted territories of quantum gravity. This project is also envisioned to have broader impact by boosting the interfaces between string theory and mathematics. The PIs will also provide critical training to postdocs and students, and intend to give public lectures on their research results and organize workshops. More technically, the PIs aim to construct the full spacetime effective action of different string theory and M-theory compactifications to all orders in the slope parameter and its formulation in superspace. Their goal is to use physics to solve long-standing problems in mathematics (e.g,. the search of a "Calabi-Yau-type" theorem for manifolds with exceptional holonomy or to search for an analogue of mirror symmetry). Further, the PI's will study the construction of an action principle for higher-spin theory, its quantization, higher-spin invariant functionals, and higher-spin black holes. They will also study supersymmetric field theories in curved backgrounds, superconformal field theories in diverse dimensions, and a geometrical description of duality symmetries of strings and branes.