Gauge Theory, Strings and Supergravity

Dear Colleagues,

Supersymmetric quantum field theories stemming from strings and other extended objects aim at the unification of gravity with the other fundamental interactions. Special attention is deserved by supergravity, i.e., the gauge theory of supersymmetry extending Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity, which plays the role of a low-energy effective field theory for string and brane models. Some of the predictions connected to such a theroy can yield indications about how to interpret the results of astrophysical and cosmological experiments, as well as those in experiments carried out at high-energy particle accelerators. Dynamical aspects of gauge theories, both in perturbative and the nonperturbative regimes, have been investigated, within the framework of AdS/CFT correspondence, along with dualities and conformal invariance topics, with the help of supergravity theories. Black-hole solutions of the latter, as well as models of the early universe based on such theories, are of particular interests for this Special Issue.

From the more formal standpoint, the geometric and the algebraic structures of spacetime and moduli spaces, along with noncommutativity, supermanifolds, higher-spin gauge theories, and topological models, will be included in the landscape of this volume.

Prof. Stefano Bellucci
Guest Editor

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