Introduction to String Theory; M423;

Instructor: Alon Faraggi; TP120;
       Phone: 0151 794 3774;
       Email: faraggi@amtp.liv.ac.uk

Lectures:
Tuesday 09:00 Room 103 Math Building.
Tuesday 10:00 Room 103 Math Building.
Thursday 11:00 Room 104 Math Building.
Thursday 12:00 Room 104 Math building.

Office hours: Mon 12:00; Thurs; 13:00

webpage: http://www.maths.liv.ac.uk/TheorPhys/people/staff/faraggi/teaching/str/stcourse10.html

Lecture notes

Lectures week 1

Lectures week 2

Lectures week 3 and week 4

Lectures week 5 and week 6

Lectures week 7 and week 8

Lectures week 9 and week 10

Problem sets

H.W. set 1 sols set 1

H.W. set 2 sols set 2

H.W. set 3 sols set 3

H.W. set 4 sols set 4

H.W. set 5 sols set 5

H.W. set 6 sols set 6

H.W. set 7 sols set 7

H.W. set 8 sols set 8

H.W. set 9 sols set 9

H.W. set 10 sols set 10

Past exams

midterm exam midterm solutions

January 2010 Exam January 2010 solutions

Course Description

I. General outline:

The course aim is introduction to string theory.

Assessment:   The grade will be based on: final exam 90%; MT 10%; All problems in the exam are HW style problems.

II. Syllabus:

1. The road to string unification

2. Special relativity and higher dimensions

3. Electromagnestism in various dimensions

4. The nonrelativistic strings

5. The relativistic point particle

6. The classical relativistic string

7. The Polyakov action

8. World-sheet currents

9. Solutions of the open and closed string equations of motion

10. The quantum harmonic oscillator

11. The relativistic quantum open and closed string

12. The light-cone relativistic string

13. Covariant and light-cone quantization

14. T-duality of closed string

III. References

The main reference for this course is: A First Course in String Theory by Barton Zwiebach

Additional refences include:

String theory by Dieter Lust and Stefan Thiesen
Superstring theory by Michael Green, John Schwarz and Edward Witten
String theory and M-theory by Katherin Becker, Melanie Becker and John Schwarz