Superstring Theory, Gravitational Instantons and Black Hole Physics

该奖项为黎巴嫩贝鲁特美国大学的Wafic Sabra教授提供研究旅行支持。理论物理学中最紧迫的问题是如何调和支配微观世界的量子力学定律和支配引力物理学的广义相对论。另一个紧迫的问题是如何把引力和自然界的其他基本力结合成一个统一的理论。爱因斯坦广义相对论足以理解大多数引力现象，但对这一理论的量子力学修正在早期宇宙和黑洞物理学的研究中变得重要。萨布拉教授将研究这种统一理论在较低能量下可能产生的理论的性质。因此，这项工作可能与黑洞、粒子物理学和宇宙学的研究有关。这项研究的跨学科性质使得它对物理学家和数学家都具有潜在的价值。这笔拨款还将用于支持贝鲁特美国大学的理论物理学，这是一所在黎巴嫩和中东地区推广美国文科体系的领先大学。它还将鼓励那里的学生积极从事高能物理研究，这在世界的这个地区仍然是一个不发达的领域。更具体地说，萨布拉教授将研究洛伦兹和欧几里得超引力理论的构建，以及它们的超对称和非超对称引力解的研究和分析。在超对称解的分类中，即允许杀死旋量的解，他将使用旋量几何的强大方法。他还将对引力瞬子进行分类，并研究它们与可积模型、爱因斯坦-魏尔结构和高维黑洞的联系。他还将探索用弦和m理论解释欧几里得超重力解。

This award provides research travel support for Professor Wafic Sabra at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon.The most pressing question in theoretical physics has been the reconciliation of the laws of quantum mechanics which govern the microscopic world of the very small with the theory of general relativity which governs the physics of gravity. Another pressing question concerns the incorporation of gravity with the other fundamental forces of nature into a unified theory. Einstein general relativity is sufficient to understand most gravitational phenomena, but quantum-mechanical corrections to this theory become important in the study of the early universe and the physics of black holes. Professor Sabra will study the properties of the theories that might emerge from such a unified theory at lower energies. This work might therefore have relevance for studies of black holes, particle physics, and cosmology. The interdisciplinary nature of this research makes it potentially valuable to both physicists and mathematicians. This grant will also help to support theoretical physics at the American University of Beirut, a leading University promoting the American liberal-arts system in Lebanon and the Middle East. It will also encourage students there to actively engage in high-energy physics research, still an underdeveloped field in this part of the world. More specifically, Professor Sabra will conduct research in the construction of Lorentzian and Euclidean supergravity theories and the study and analysis of their supersymmetric and non-supersymmetric gravitational solutions. In the classification of supersymmetric solutions, i.e., solutions admitting Killing spinors, he will use the powerful method of spinorial geometry. He will also classify gravitational instantons and study their connections with integrable models, Einstein--Weyl structures and black holes in higher dimensions. He will also explore the interpretation of Euclidean supergravity solutions in terms of string and M-theory.