Henry Liu, Department of Pure Mathematics, University of Waterloo
“Quantizing the String”
The classical relativistic string can be quantized in many different ways. As with QFT, we explore two: canonical quantization and path integrals. Canonical quantization directly gives the spectrum and state space of a free string, along with the dimension D = 26 of bosonic string theory. Path integrals, on the other hand, prepare us for interacting string theory. We will see that the path integral quantization of strings is similar to that of quantum electrodynamics, but there are additional complications, called Faddeev-Popov ghosts, arising from the non-abelian gauge group.
MC 5403