The NATO Advanced Study Institute and EC Summer School "Progress in String Field and Particle Theory" was held in Cargse from June 25th till July 11th 2002. The main focus of the school was the recent progress in the very ac­ tive areas of superstring theory, quantum gravity and the theory of elementary particles. It covered topical problems in domains such as duality between gravity and gaugeinteractions, string field theory, tachyon condensation, non-commutative field theory, string cosmology and string phenomenology. The School featured daily introductory lectures and topical seminars. An informal Gong Show session allowed young post-doctoral researchers and senior graduate students to make a concise presentation oftheir current work. The School gave an excellent opportunity to the youngest researchers to establish a close relationship with their seniors and with the lecturers. These proceedings will further serve in fixing the acquired knowledge, and hopefully, become a useful reference for anyone working in this fascinating do­ main of physics. Some of the contributions provide an elementary introduction to their subject, while other ones are more geared to the specialist. We are deeply indebted to the NATO Division for Scientific Affairs for funding, and for their constant attention for our meetings, and to the European Commission for a High-Level Scientific Conference grant HPCFCT 2001-00298.

Inhalt

Preface. I: Lectures. The non-ADS / non-CFT correspondence, or three different paths to QCD; O. Aharony. Physics of low scale string models; I. Antoniadis. Supergravityversus topological gravity; L. Baulieu. The holographic principle; R. Bousso. Two talks on a tentative theory of large distance physics; D. Friedan. A toy model for the M5-brane; J. Harvey. D-branes on the conifiold and Nu = 1 gauge/gravity dualities; C.P. Herzog, et al. Defects, decay, and dissipated states; E.J. Martinec. String dynamics on PP-waves from Yang Mills theory; S. Minwalla. Seiberg Witten prepotential, higher Casimirs, and free fermions; N.A. Nekrasov. Aspects of string motion in time-dependent backgrounds; E. Rabinovici. On the geometry of higher-spin gauge fields; D. Francia, A. Sagnotti. Open string creation by S-branes; A. Strominger. Topics in gauge theory/string theory duality; E. Verlinde. Open string star algebra and rolling tachyons; B. Zwiebach. II: Gong Show. Appendix. List of speakers. List of participants.