Dothan Physics Colloquium

Prof. Philip Candelas is a visitor of The Emilio Segre Distinguished Lectures in Physics of the Raymond and Beverly Sackler Foundation.

Lecture Title: 

A short tour through heterotic string vacua

Abstract: 

String theory is popular among physicists for many reasons, but two that are much cited are (i) that it provides a solution to the long standing question of how to quantise gravity and (ii) that it seems to do this in a way that can incorporate also the Standard Model of electromagnetic, weak and strong interactions. On the other hand, there are famously, or notoriously, a great many vacua of string theory; the great majority looking nothing like the world we see. I will focus on the construction of what are, perhaps, the simplest vacua and review some cases that are perhaps “close” to being realistic. I will point out that there is a lot that we would like to know even about these simple cases.

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