The purpose of this book is to thoroughly prepare the reader for research in string theory. It is intended as a textbook in the sense that, starting from the basics, the material is presented in a pedagogical and self-contained fashion. The emphasis is on the world-sheet perspective of closed strings and of open strings ending on D-branes, where two-dimensional conformal field theory is the main tool. Compactifications of string theory, with and without fluxes, and string dualities are also discussed from the space-time point of view, i.e. in geometric language. End-of-chapter references have been added to guide the reader intending to pursue further studies or to start research in the topics covered by this book.

Autorentext

Stefan Theisen is also LNP series editor for many years
Ralph Blumenhagen has already published an LNP

Inhalt

The Classical Bosonic String.- The Quantized Bosonic String.- Introduction to Conformal Field Theory.- Parametrization Ghosts and BRST Quantization.- String Perturbation Theory and One-Loop Amplitudes.- The Classical Fermionic String.- The Quantized Fermionic String.- Superstrings.- Toroidal Compactifications - 10-Dimensional Heterotic String.- Conformal Field Theory II: Lattices and Kac-Moody Algebras.- Conformal Field Theory III: Superconformal Field Theory.- Covariant Vertex Operators, BRST and Covariant Lattices.- String Compactifications.- CFTs for Type II and Heterotic String Vacua.- String Scattering Amplitudes and Low Energy Effective Field Theory.- Compactifications of the Type II Superstring With D-branes and Fluxes.- String Dualities and M-theory.