Last updated: March 6, 2007

Notice: The lecture on Tuesday March 6, 2007 has been canceled

New lecture notes (set 10) added on Feb 18

Introduction to String Theory

Course announcement for Nov 2006


Lectures are held in the CoPS seminar room A5:1041

Lecture Schedule:

 First meeting: Nov 9, 2006, 14:00
From Nov 13, 2006 until Jan 25 2007 lectures are held on Mondays from 14:00 to 16:00 & Tuesdays from 13:00 to 15:00.
From Jan 30, 2007, lectures are held on Tuesdays from 13:00 to 15:00

Text Books

 Green, Schwarz and Witten : Superstring Theory Vol. I
Zwiebach : A First Course in String Theory
Polchinski : String Theory Vol. I (Bosonic String)
Polchinski : String Theory Vol. II (Superstring)
Lust and Theisen : Lectures on String Theory (out of print)

Lecture Notes

(These notes are from last year. At least Set 1 to Set 9 should soon be available in latex form and more notes will be added)
The information below pertains to the previous time the course was given from Oct 2005 to Feb 2006:

Lecture Schedule and Content

  • Lecture 1 (Friday, Oct 21, 2005, 14:00-16:00), Lecture notes(scanned, pdf, complete)
    Content: Classical theory of bosonic strings, notion of induced metric, Nambu-Goto action, Polyakov action and their equivalence, the worldsheet stress-energy tensor
  • Lecture 2 (Tuesday, Oct 25, 2005, 14:00-16:00), Lecture notes(scanned, pdf, complete)
    Content: Classical symmetries of Polyakov action, consequences of Weyl and reparametrization invariance for the stress-energy tensor, Gauge fixing, worldsheet light-cone coordinates, Conformal invariance.
  • Lecture 3 (Tuesday, Nov 01, 2005, 14:00-16:00) Lecture notes(scanned, pdf, complete)
    Content: Stress-energy tensor and the gauge fixed action: Noether's theorem (statement and proof), worldsheet coordinate transformations and the stress-energy tensor, conservation laws and the role of boundary conditions, stress-energy tensor and conformal transformations, the classical Virasoro algebra.
  • Lecture 4 (Thursday, Nov 3, 2005, 13:00-15:00),
    Content: Equation of motion and boundary terms, Oscillator expansion of solutions, Boundary conditions: 1) closed strings in non-compact space and on a circle, 2) open strings (Neumann boundary condition), 3) open strings (Neumann and Dirichlet boundary conditions, D-branes).
  • Lecture 5 (Monday, Nov 7, 2005, 14:00-16:00),
  • Lecture 6 (Thursday, Nov 10, 2005, 13:00-15:00), Lecture notes(scanned, pdf)
  • Lecture 7 (Monday, Nov 14, 2005, 14:00-16:00), Lecture notes(scanned, pdf)
  • Lecture 8 (Thursday, Nov 17, 2005, 13:00-15:00),
  • Lecture 9 (Monday, Nov 21, 2005, 14:00-16:00), Lecture notes (scanned, pdf)
  • Lecture 10 (Thursday, Nov 24, 2005, 13:00-15:00),
  • Lecture 11 (Monday, Nov 28, 2005, 14:00-16:00),
  • Lecture 12 (Thursday, Dec 01, 2005, 13:00-15:00), Lecture notes (scanned, pdf, Added: Feb 13, 2006 )
  • Lecture 13 (Monday, Dec 05, 2005, 14:00-16:00),
  • Lecture 14 (Thursday, Dec 08, 2005, 13:00-15:00), Lecture notes (scanned, pdf, Added: Feb 24, 2006 )
  • Lecture 15 (Monday, Dec 12, 2005, 14:00-16:00),
  • Lecture 16 (Thursday, Dec 15, 2005, 13:00-15:00), Lecture notes (scanned, pdf, Added: Apr 3, 2006 -- incomplete)
  • Lecture 17 (Thursday, Jan 05, 2006, 13:00-15:00),
  • Lecture 18 (Monday, Jan 09, 2006, 14:00-16:00),
  • Lecture 19 (Thursday, Jan 12, 2006, 13:00-15:00),
  • Lecture 20 (Monday, Jan 16, 2006, 14:00-16:00),
  • Lecture 21 (Thursday, Jan 19, 2006, 13:00-15:00),
    Preliminary lecture notes on Superstrings (scanned, pdf -- rescanned Jan 22: better quality, you need pages 11 to 43 )
  • Lecture 22 (Monday, Jan 23, 2006, 14:00-16:00),
  • Lecture 23 (Thursday, Jan 26, 2006, 13:00-15:00),
  • Lecture 24 (Tuesday, Feb 07, 2006, 10:00-12:00) -- Last lecture -- (note the unusual time)
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