Fall 2011 PHYS 485 String Theory I

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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