1991/08/26 by John H. Schwarz, Schwarz, John H. · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th) #Noncommutative and Quantum Gravity Theories #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #hep-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.hep-th/9108022
21 pages
arxiv created 1991/08/26 · openalex publication_date 1991/08/26 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
This review talk focusses on some of the interesting developments in the area of superstring compactification that have occurred in the last couple of years. These include the discovery that ``mirror symmetric" pairs of Calabi--Yau spaces, with completely distinct geometries and topologies, correspond to a single (2,2) conformal field theory. Also, the concept of target-space duality, originally discovered for toroidal compactification, is being extended to Calabi--Yau spaces. It also associates sets of geometrically distinct manifolds to a single conformal field theory. A couple of other topics are presented very briefly. One concerns conceptual challenges in reconciling gravity and quantum mechanics. It is suggested that certain ``distasteful allegations" associated with quantum gravity such as loss of quantum coherence, unpredictability of fundamental parameters of particle physics, and paradoxical features of black holes are likely to be circumvented by string theory. Finally there is a brief discussion of the importance of supersymmetry at the TeV scale, both from a practical point of view and as a potentially significant prediction of string theory.