String theory and mathematical physics

Research areas

• gauge theory, string theory
• algebraic geometry
• effective actions

String theory addresses one of the deepest problems of contemporary physics, namely the reconciliation of gravity and quantum theory. It regularizes quantum gravity, provides a perturbative expansion in the regime of small gravitational coupling, and unifies the gravitational force with the forces of the standard model of elementary particle physics. String dualities lead to non-perturbative formulations of gauge theory and quantum gravity. As a consequence, black holes have been successfully treated as quantum objects and serious efforts are made toward a theory of quantum cosmology. The formulation of quantum gravity requires a similar change of physical and mathematical concepts as the development of quantum mechanics. This sparked an intense interaction between physicists and mathematicians that lead to substantial contributions to both fields.
[ Picture of the quintic from wikipedia.org. ]

Contact

Bethe Center for Theoretical Physics
Physikalisches Institut
Nussallee 12
53115 Bonn
Germany

Secretariat