String theory and mathematical physics


Research areas


quintic 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

P. Weiss weiss@th.physik.uni-bonn.de
P. Zündorf: zuendorf@th.physik.uni-bonn.de
D. Fassbender: fassbender@th.physik.uni-bonn.de
Tel.: +49 228 73 3247
Fax.: +49 228 73 3223