NSF Award
0703017
Recently,considerable progress has been made in the study of string theories.<br/>It has been realized that superstring theory has a web of duality symmetries relating<br/>nonperturbative effects to perturbative ones. The picture emerging is that there exists a<br/>fundamental theory, M-theory, that perturbatively, looks like string theory, but<br/>nonperturbatively has a very rich structure which includes symmetries relating<br/>perturbative excitations to solitons. Another recent development<br/>has been Maldacena's conjectured equivalence between string theory on anti-de Sitter<br/>spaces and gauge field theories living on the boundary of these spaces. This ADS/CFT<br/>equivalence gave more importance to the study of gravitational anti-de Sitter<br/>configurations as they provide a tool to the study of quantum gauge field theories<br/>important for particle physics. The main focus of this proposal is: a) to find<br/>a complete classification of supersymmetric gravitational backgrounds in various<br/>spacetime dimensions and to understand better the ADS/CFT correspondence and the<br/>intricate relation between geometry and supersymmetry. b) to develop our<br/>understanding of the nonperturbative theory underlying string theory, and incorporate<br/>the new developments in the study of the phenomenological implications of string theory<br/>to gravitational physics, particle physics and cosmology. The broader implications of<br/>this proposal are that it will lead to collaboration between string theorists and differential<br/>geometry. Also the work will take place at the Center for Advanced mathematical<br/>Science at the University of Beirut which will become a Major Center for collaborations<br/>among scientists in the Middle East.<br/>NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION<br/>Diary Note<br/>Proposal:0703017 PI Name:Sabra, Wafic<br/>Printed from eJacket: 02/28/07 Page 1 of 1
