Field/string theory reading list

The following is a sample of references and reviews of
advanced topics in field and string theory.  The list
was initially compiled in the year 2000, and may not
fully reflect more recent advances.  Sporadic updates
are contemplated.

Anyone printing out all of the references will be visited
by angry druids; there are literally thousands of pages,
and not all sections of these papers are relevant
for an overview of the subject.

Also, in many cases multiple references covering the same
material are given; find the one that speaks best to you,
and ignore or skim the rest.  Furthermore, not all sections
of any given paper are relevant for an overview of the subject;
so even though there are thousands of pages, you will want to
distill the essentials rather than try to go over everything.



Susy Gauge Theory and relation to D-branes
------------------------------------------

1.  N=1 Form of the superalgebra;
        D-terms, F-terms, FI terms; chiral and vector multiplets;
        superpotential and Kahler potential; Seiberg duality in N=1.

refs:
A comprehensive, modern introduction to supersymmetry is
Lykken, hep-th/9612114.
Alvarez-Gaume and Hassan, hep-th/9701069 contains a brief
review of supersymmetry and its field representations
for both N=1 and N=2, as well as a detailed discussion of
N=1,2 duality.  Intriligator and Seiberg, hep-th/9509066,
is a good review of N=1 duality; a summary of the basic Seiberg
duality is Seiberg, hep-th/9506077.  A discussion of N=0,1,2
from the man who wrote the book is Peskin, hep-th/9702094.


2.  N=2 Form of the superalgebra, and R-symmetry;
        vector- and hyper-multiplets; prepotential; monopoles and
        BPS bound; Seiberg-Witten analysis.

refs:
In addition to the articles mentioned above,
Bilal, hep-th/9601007 is shorter and contains the main ideas.


3.  N=4 Form of the superalgebra, and R-symmetry;
        superconformal algebra and vanishing of beta function;
        monopoles, dyons, and SL(2,Z) duality

refs:
Harvey hep-th/9603086 reviews monopoles, dyons, and duality
in N=2 and N=4.


4.  Moduli spaces and collective coordinates; Coulomb and Higgs branches.
    The relation to D-brane dynamics.

refs:
Giveon and Kutasov hep-th/9802067 is a thorough review.


5.  Instantons (Coleman Erice lectures `The uses of instantons')
        ???good ref on what instantons correct in string theory,
        both on the worldsheet and in spacetime???
    Monopoles  (Harvey lectures hep-th/9603086)


--------------------------------------------------------------------

Supergravity and M-theory
-------------------------

1.  U-duality and duality chasing

refs:
P. Townsend, hep-th/9612121 and hep-th/9712004 give the supergraviter's
perspective on the various low-energy limits of string theory,
their superalgebras, and brane solutions.  A summary of dualities
in various superstring compactifications is given in
de Wit and Louis, hep-th/9801132, and in Forste and Louis, hep-th/9612192.

2.  Particular geometries that come up all the time:

a.  K3  (Aspinwall, hep-th/9611137; a briefer version in
        Aspinwall and Morrison, hep-th/9404151)
b.  Taub-NUT (Eguchi, Gilkey, and Hanson Phys.Rept.66 (1980) 213)
c.  ALE      (Eguchi, Gilkey, and Hanson Phys.Rept.66 (1980) 213;
              Anselmi-Billo-Fre-Girardello-Zaffaroni, hep-th/9304135)
d.  Conifold (Candelas and de la Ossa, Nucl Phys B342 (1990) 246-268)
e.  Calabi-Yau (the relevant chapter of Green, Schwarz, and Witten)



The application of complex geometry to low-energy string theory
is summarized in Aspinwall, hep-th/0001001


Horava-Witten (Witten hep-th/9602070)

Matrix theory (Banks review hep-th/9710231)

AdS/CFT (Aharony et.al. review hep-th/9905111)

A brief summary of black holes and D-branes is
Maldacena, hep-th/9705078; a somewhat longer review is
Peet, hep-th/9712253

Holography (Bigatti and Susskind hep-th/0002044)

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Worldsheet string theory
------------------------

Covariant quantization (cf Polchinski's text)

WZW model

Bosonic constructions:
        T-duality (Giveon-Porrati-Rabinovici, hep-th/9401139)
        bosonization and rank one rep'n of current algebra
                (Goddard-Olive, Int.J.Mod.Phys.A1 (1986) 303)

linear dilatons:
        Liouville (Seiberg `Notes on quantum liouville theory
                and quantum gravity', Ginsparg-Moore hep-th/9304011)
        CHS (Callan-Harvey-Strominger hep-th/9112030)

orbifolds: (Anselmi-Billo-Fre-Girardello-Zaffaroni, hep-th/9304135)
        blowup modes
        SUSY
        $T^4/Z_2$

elliptic genus (Witten, Commun.Math.Phys.109 (1987) 525;
                Alvarez-Killingback-Mangano-Windey,
                Commun.Math.Phys. 111 (1987) 1)



More than you will ever want to know about CFT's related
to CFT on K3 is contained in Nahm and Wendland, hep-th/9912067.