RUI: Supersymmetric Gauge Theory and Dirichlet-Branes

Bowdoin College, Brunswick ME

Investigators

Abstract

The primary aim of the project is to explore connections between theories describing two different fundamental forces, namely, the nuclear force and gravity. The strong and weak nuclear forces are described by gauge theories, whereas quantum gravity is thought to be described by string theory. String theory, however, contains not only strings but also D-branes, extended objects whose properties involve supersymmetric gauge theories, thus providing the connection between the two types of theory. Specifically, the project focuses on the properties of particular string theories containing D-branes and orientifold planes; in these theories, the supersymmetric gauge theories describing the D-branes include the analogs of quarks. The interest of this line of research is that questions impossible to answer in one theory may be easy to answer using the other theory, and vice versa, allowing progress to be made in both. For example, well-understood properties of gauge theory could lead to a better understanding of string theory, and thus quantum gravity, which has long been an unsolved problem. Conversely, string theory could be used to probe gauge theories in the poorly understood strong-coupling regime. Ultimately, this could explain the phenomenon of quark confinement (that is, the fact that free quarks cannot be observed) and yield a quantitative understanding of the structure of protons, nuclei, etc., in terms of the properties of their constituent quarks.