Fall 2011
PHYS 485 String Theory I
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here! for a .pdf file of the course information
Instructor: Seckin Kürkcüoglu,
kseckin@metu.edu.tr
Meeting Times:
Wed: 16:40-19:30, P9
Grading:
There will be regular homework assignments and a final assignment.
There may be short open book in class examinations.
Textbooks:
A first course in String Theory, Barton Zwiebach, Cambridge University
Press, 2004.
Reference Books:
Superstring Theory, Vol.1, M.B. Green, J.H. Schwarz, E.Witten,
Cambridge University Press, 1987
D- Branes, C.V.Johnson, Cambridge University Press, 2003
Course Syllabus:
• Review of special relativity and
electromagnetism,
• Relativistic point particle,
• Relativistic strings, Nambu-Goto action,
• Equations of motion, boundary conditions, and
a preview of D-branes
• String parameterization and classical motion,
• World-sheet currents, conserved currents on
the world-sheet
• Light-cone gauge formulation of particles and
fields
• Light-cone gauge formulation of strings
• Wave-equation and mode expansions
• Quantization of the relativistic point
particle,
• Quantization of the relativistic open strings
in the light-cone gauge
• Quantization of the relativistic closed
strings in the light-cone gauge
• Virasoro operators and Virasoro algebra,
Aspects of covariant quantization