General Information

Time and Place: Fr, 14 - 16, SR PW 19

Language

The course will be given in English if there is a demand for it, otherwise in German.

Contents

Strings and their theory

Lecture Notes

The course will follow but not necessarily be identical with these lecture notes (in German, english version to follow at some point).

Literature

Textbooks

• B. Zwiebach, A First Course in String Theory, Cambridge University Press 2004

  Good introduction.

• J. Polchinski, String Theory, 2 volumes, Cambridge University Press 1998

  One of the standard textbooks on advanced aspects of string theory.

• M.B. Green, J.H. Schwarz, E. Witten, Superstring Theory, 2 volumes, Cambridge University Press 1987

  Until some time ago the standard textbook, explains well and in sufficient detail the state of the art before 1987, but does not contain more recent developments.

• ... and for the weekends:
  B. Greene, The Elegant Universe, paperback, Vintage Books 2000
  (auch auf deutsch erhältlich: Das Elegante Universum, Berliner Taschenbuch Verlag 2002)

  Very good popular science exposition of string theory, also recommended for physics students.

Lecture notes on string theory, general aspects

• G. 't Hooft, Introduction to String Theory Lecture Notes

• R. Dijkgraaf, String Theory Lecture Notes

• E. Kiritsis, Introduction to Superstring Theory, hep-th/9709062

• J. Polchinski, What is String Theory?, hep-th/9411028

• R. Szabo, BUSSTEPP Lectures on String Theory, hep-th/0207142

• H. Ooguri, Z. Yin, TASI Lectures on Perturbative String Theory, hep-th/9612254

• Many more lecture notes can be found at hep-th und SPIRES. An overview of the literature is given in hep-th/0311044.

Lecture notes on more specialized aspects

• P. Ginsparg, Applied Conformal Field Theory, hep-th/9108028

• J. Polchinski, Tasi Lectures on D-branes, hep-th/9611050

• C. Vafa, Lectures on Strings and Dualities, hep-th/9702201

• J. Maldacena, TASI 2003 Lectures on AdS/CFT, hep-th/0309246