Henry Liu, Department of Pure Mathematics, University of Waterloo
“Stringy Actions and Gauge Fixing”
From the QFT seminar last term, we now have the necessary background to approach string theory and supersymmetry, the focus of the seminar this term. As with all physical theories, string theory begins with a (classical) action - the Polyakov action for relativistic strings - which we will derive by analogy with the action of relativistic point particles. We will then discuss the gauge symmetries of the Polyakov action in preparation for its quantization.
MC 5403