Superstring theory

Superstring theory is an attempt to explain all of the particles and fundamental forces of nature in one
theory by modeling them as vibrations of tiny supersymmetric strings.

'Superstring theory' is a shorthand for supersymmetric string theory because unlike bosonic string
theory, it is the version of string theory that accounts for both fermions and bosons and incorporates
supersymmetry to model gravity.

Since the second superstring revolution, the five superstring theories (Type I, Type IIA, Type IIB, HO and
HE) are regarded as different limits of a single theory tentatively called M-theory.

Background
One of the deepest open problems in theoretical physics is formulating a theory of quantum gravity. Such
a theory incorporates both the theory of general relativity, which describes gravitation and applies to large-
scale structures, and quantum mechanics or more specifically quantum field theory, which describes the
other three fundamental forces that act on the atomic scale.

Quantum field theory, in particular the Standard model, is currently the most successful theory to describe
fundamental forces, but while computing physical quantities of interest, naïvely one obtains infinite
values. Physicists developed the technique of renormalization to 'eliminate these infinities' to obtain finite
values which can be experimentally tested. This technique works for three of the four fundamental forces:
Electromagnetism, the strong force and the weak force, but does not work for gravity, which is non-
renormalizable. Development of a quantum theory of gravity therefore requires different means than those
used for the other forces.[1]

According to superstring theory, or more generally string theory, the fundamental constituents of reality
are strings with radius on the order of the Planck length (about 10−33 cm). An appealing feature of string
theory is that fundamental particles can be viewed as excitations of the string. The tension in a string is on
the order of the Planck force (1044 newtons). The graviton (the proposed messenger particle of the
gravitational force) is predicted by the theory to be a string with wave amplitude zero.

History
Investigating how a string theory may include fermions in its spectrum led to the invention of
supersymmetry (in the West)[2] in 1971,[3] a mathematical transformation between bosons and fermions.
String theories that include fermionic vibrations are now known as "superstring theories".
Since its beginnings in the seventies and through the combined efforts of many different researchers,
superstring theory has developed into a broad and varied subject with connections to quantum gravity,
particle and condensed matter physics, cosmology, and pure mathematics.

Absence of physical evidence

Superstring theory is based on supersymmetry. No supersymmetric particles have been discovered and
initial investigation, carried out in 2011 at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)[4] and in 2006 at the Tevatron
has excluded some of the ranges.[5][6][7][8] For instance, the mass constraint of the Minimal
Supersymmetric Standard Model squarks has been up to 1.1 TeV, and gluinos up to 500 GeV.[9] No report
on suggesting large extra dimensions has been delivered from the LHC. There have been no principles so
far to limit the number of vacua in the concept of a landscape of vacua.[10]

Some particle physicists became disappointed by the lack of experimental verification of supersymmetry,
and some have already discarded it.[11] Jon Butterworth at University College London said that we had no
sign of supersymmetry, even in higher energy regions, excluding the superpartners of the top quark up to a
few TeV. Ben Allanach at the University of Cambridge states that if we do not discover any new particles
in the next trial at the LHC, then we can say it is unlikely to discover supersymmetry at CERN in the
foreseeable future.[11]

Extra dimensions
Our physical space is observed to have three large spatial dimensions and, along with time, is a boundless
4-dimensional continuum known as spacetime. However, nothing prevents a theory from including more
than 4 dimensions. In the case of string theory, consistency requires spacetime to have 10 dimensions (3D
regular space + 1 time + 6D hyperspace).[12] The fact that we see only 3 dimensions of space can be
explained by one of two mechanisms: either the extra dimensions are compactified on a very small scale,
or else our world may live on a 3-dimensional submanifold corresponding to a brane, on which all known
particles besides gravity would be restricted.

If the extra dimensions are compactified, then the extra 6 dimensions must be in the form of a Calabi–Yau
manifold. Within the more complete framework of M-theory, they would have to take form of a G2
manifold. A particular exact symmetry of string/M-theory called T-duality (which exchanges momentum
modes for winding number and sends compact dimensions of radius R to radius 1/R),[13] has led to the
discovery of equivalences between different Calabi–Yau manifolds called mirror symmetry.

Superstring theory is not the first theory to propose extra spatial dimensions. It can be seen as building
upon the Kaluza–Klein theory, which proposed a 4+1 dimensional (5D) theory of gravity. When
compactified on a circle, the gravity in the extra dimension precisely describes electromagnetism from the
perspective of the 3 remaining large space dimensions. Thus the original Kaluza–Klein theory is a
prototype for the unification of gauge and gravity interactions, at least at the classical level, however it is
known to be insufficient to describe nature for a variety of reasons (missing weak and strong forces, lack
of parity violation, etc.) A more complex compact geometry is needed to reproduce the known gauge
forces. Also, to obtain a consistent, fundamental, quantum theory requires the upgrade to string theory, not
just the extra dimensions.

Number of superstring theories

Theoretical physicists were troubled by the existence of five separate superstring theories. A possible
solution for this dilemma was suggested at the beginning of what is called the second superstring
revolution in the 1990s, which suggests that the five string theories might be different limits of a single
underlying theory, called M-theory. This remains a conjecture.[14]

String theories

Spacetime SUSY open heterotic gauge

Type chiral tachyon
dimensions generators strings compactification group
Bosonic
26 N=0 no no no none yes
(closed)

Bosonic
26 N=0 no yes no U(1) yes
(open)
I 10 N = (1,0) yes yes no SO(32) no

IIA 10 N = (1,1) no no no U(1) no

IIB 10 N = (2,0) yes no no none no

HO 10 N = (1,0) yes no yes SO(32) no

HE 10 N = (1,0) yes no yes E8 × E8 no

M-theory 11 N=1 no no no none no

The five consistent superstring theories are:

The type I string has one supersymmetry in the ten-dimensional sense (16 supercharges).
This theory is special in the sense that it is based on unoriented open and closed strings,
while the rest are based on oriented closed strings.
The type II string theories have two supersymmetries in the ten-dimensional sense (32
supercharges). There are actually two kinds of type II strings called type IIA and type IIB.
They differ mainly in the fact that the IIA theory is non-chiral (parity conserving) while the IIB
theory is chiral (parity violating).
The heterotic string theories are based on a peculiar hybrid of a type I superstring and a
bosonic string. There are two kinds of heterotic strings differing in their ten-dimensional
gauge groups: the heterotic E8×E8 string and the heterotic SO(32) string. (The name
heterotic SO(32) is slightly inaccurate since among the SO(32) Lie groups, string theory
singles out a quotient Spin(32)/Z2 that is not equivalent to SO(32).)
Chiral gauge theories can be inconsistent due to anomalies. This happens when certain one-loop Feynman
diagrams cause a quantum mechanical breakdown of the gauge symmetry. The anomalies were canceled
out via the Green–Schwarz mechanism.

Even though there are only five superstring theories, making detailed predictions for real experiments
requires information about exactly what physical configuration the theory is in. This considerably
complicates efforts to test string theory because there is an astronomically high number—10500 or more—
of configurations that meet some of the basic requirements to be consistent with our world. Along with the
extreme remoteness of the Planck scale, this is the other major reason it is hard to test superstring theory.

Another approach to the number of superstring theories refers to the mathematical structure called
composition algebra. In the findings of abstract algebra there are just seven composition algebras over the
field of real numbers. In 1990 physicists R. Foot and G.C. Joshi in Australia stated that "the seven
classical superstring theories are in one-to-one correspondence to the seven composition algebras".[15]

Integrating general relativity and quantum mechanics

General relativity typically deals with situations involving large mass objects in fairly large regions of
spacetime whereas quantum mechanics is generally reserved for scenarios at the atomic scale (small
spacetime regions). The two are very rarely used together, and the most common case that combines them
is in the study of black holes. Having peak density, or the maximum amount of matter possible in a space,
and very small area, the two must be used in synchrony to predict conditions in such places. Yet, when
used together, the equations fall apart, spitting out impossible answers, such as imaginary distances and
less than one dimension.

The major problem with their incongruence is that, at Planck scale (a fundamental small unit of length)
lengths, general relativity predicts a smooth, flowing surface, while quantum mechanics predicts a
random, warped surface, which are nowhere near compatible. Superstring theory resolves this issue,
replacing the classical idea of point particles with strings. These strings have an average diameter of the
Planck length, with extremely small variances, which completely ignores the quantum mechanical
predictions of Planck-scale length dimensional warping. Also, these surfaces can be mapped as branes.
These branes can be viewed as objects with a morphism between them. In this case, the morphism will be
the state of a string that stretches between brane A and brane B.

Singularities are avoided because the observed consequences of "Big Crunches" never reach zero size. In
fact, should the universe begin a "big crunch" sort of process, string theory dictates that the universe could
never be smaller than the size of one string, at which point it would actually begin expanding.

Mathematics

D-branes
D-branes are membrane-like objects in 10D string theory. They can be thought of as occurring as a result
of a Kaluza–Klein compactification of 11D M-theory that contains membranes. Because compactification
of a geometric theory produces extra vector fields the D-branes can be included in the action by adding an
extra U(1) vector field to the string action.

In type I open string theory, the ends of open strings are always attached to D-brane surfaces. A string
theory with more gauge fields such as SU(2) gauge fields would then correspond to the compactification
of some higher-dimensional theory above 11 dimensions, which is not thought to be possible to date.
Furthermore, the tachyons attached to the D-branes show the instability of those D-branes with respect to
the annihilation. The tachyon total energy is (or reflects) the total energy of the D-branes.

Why five superstring theories?

For a 10 dimensional supersymmetric theory we are allowed a 32-component Majorana spinor. This can
be decomposed into a pair of 16-component Majorana-Weyl (chiral) spinors. There are then various ways
to construct an invariant depending on whether these two spinors have the same or opposite chiralities:

Superstring model Invariant

Heterotic

IIA

IIB

The heterotic superstrings come in two types SO(32) and E8×E8 as indicated above and the type I
superstrings include open strings.

Beyond superstring theory

It is conceivable that the five superstring theories are approximated to a theory in higher dimensions
possibly involving membranes. Because the action for this involves quartic terms and higher so is not
Gaussian, the functional integrals are very difficult to solve and so this has confounded the top theoretical
physicists. Edward Witten has popularised the concept of a theory in 11 dimensions, called M-theory,
involving membranes interpolating from the known symmetries of superstring theory. It may turn out that
there exist membrane models or other non-membrane models in higher dimensions—which may become
acceptable when we find new unknown symmetries of nature, such as noncommutative geometry. It is
thought, however, that 16 is probably the maximum since SO(16) is a maximal subgroup of E8, the largest
exceptional Lie group, and also is more than large enough to contain the Standard Model. Quartic integrals
of the non-functional kind are easier to solve so there is hope for the future. This is the series solution,
which is always convergent when a is non-zero and negative:

In the case of membranes the series would correspond to sums of various membrane interactions that are
not seen in string theory.

Compactification
Investigating theories of higher dimensions often involves looking at the 10 dimensional superstring
theory and interpreting some of the more obscure results in terms of compactified dimensions. For
example, D-branes are seen as compactified membranes from 11D M-theory. Theories of higher
dimensions such as 12D F-theory and beyond produce other effects, such as gauge terms higher than U(1).
The components of the extra vector fields (A) in the D-brane actions can be thought of as extra
coordinates (X) in disguise. However, the known symmetries including supersymmetry currently restrict
the spinors to 32-components—which limits the number of dimensions to 11 (or 12 if you include two
time dimensions.) Some physicists (e.g., John Baez et al.) have speculated that the exceptional Lie groups
E6, E7 and E8 having maximum orthogonal subgroups SO(10), SO(12) and SO(16) may be related to
theories in 10, 12 and 16 dimensions; 10 dimensions corresponding to string theory and the 12 and 16
dimensional theories being yet undiscovered but would be theories based on 3-branes and 7-branes
respectively. However, this is a minority view within the string community. Since E7 is in some sense F4
quaternified and E8 is F4 octonified, the 12 and 16 dimensional theories, if they did exist, may involve the
noncommutative geometry based on the quaternions and octonions respectively. From the above
discussion, it can be seen that physicists have many ideas for extending superstring theory beyond the
current 10 dimensional theory, but so far all have been unsuccessful.

Kac–Moody algebras
Since strings can have an infinite number of modes, the symmetry used to describe string theory is based
on infinite dimensional Lie algebras. Some Kac–Moody algebras that have been considered as symmetries
for M-theory have been E10 and E11 and their supersymmetric extensions.

See also

Physics portal

AdS/CFT correspondence
dS/CFT correspondence
Grand unification theory
List of string theory topics
String field theory

References
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2. Rickles, Dean (2014). A Brief History of String Theory: From Dual Models to M-Theory.
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Cited sources
Polchinski, Joseph (1998a). String Theory Vol. 1: An Introduction to the Bosonic String.
Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-63303-1.
Polchinski, Joseph (1998b). String Theory Vol. 2: Superstring Theory and Beyond.
Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-63304-8.

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