Physics 137, String Theory

Professor: Ken Intriligator, Mayer Hall 5234

Office hours: Fridays 4-5pm TBA, and by appointment.

Teaching Assistant: Meng Zeng

Office hours: TBA, or by appointment.

Text: A First Course in String Theory (2nd edition) , by Barton Zwiebach. I have requested that it be put on reserves at Giesel.

Course Times : TTh 2:00-3:20 pm, MH5301. Midterm: May 8, in lecture; Final: Tuesday June 12, 3-6pm .

Grading: Weekly HW will be assigned (no late HWs will be accepted). There will also be occasional in-class quizzes, and a final exam. Homework: 25%; midterm: 25%; final exam: 50%. Feel free to work in groups on the HW, but you still need to turn in your own work: do not just copy other's. Also, copying from online solutions etc is strictly not allowed. Violations will be referred to the academic integrity office.

My class from 2013. MIT open courseware site.

String Theory Wikipedia page (includes many links, and references)..

Just for fun:When I created this course, I intentionally chose number 137, just for a bit of fun ; here is more. Here is a remarkably informative song about string theory. Also check out Lenny Susskind's lectures on YouTube!

lecture topic (and link to notes) Homework (from Zwiebach)
4/3 Introduction   2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 2.5, 2.6 (optional), 2.10, 3.1, 3.2. Due 4/13.        
4/5 Relativity review, notation          
4/10 Relativity, light cone, extra dims.          
4/12 E and M and relativity   3.4, 3.7, 3.8, 3.10. Due 4/20.       
4/17 E and M and gravity in general D          
4/19 Gravity in general D, E&M Lagrangian, nonrelativistic string   4.5, 5.2, 5.7, 6.4, 6.8. Due 4/27.        
4/24 String actions          
4/26 Nambu Goto action   6.9, 6.11, 7.2, 7.5 Due 5/4.       
5/1 NG string, static gauge, string motion          
5/3 NG string EOM etc, cont.          
5/8 Midterm.          
5/10 Conservation laws          
5/15 conservation laws and NG string gauge fixing   8.5, 8.7, 9.3 (Due 5/22)       
5/17 NG string gauge fixing, cont          
5/22 Light cone gauge string. Klein Gordon field          
5/24 Klein Gordon field quantization   9.5, 10.3, 10.6 (due 6/1).        
5/29 Photon, graviton, quantization          
5/31 relativistic particle and string quantization   12.1, 12.2, 12.3 (due 6/8)       
6/5 string quantization, cont.          
6/7 closed string quantization, additional topics