String field theory and tachyon condensation

In this thesis I discuss various aspects of Witten's cubic string field theory. After a brief review of the basics of string field theory we begin by showing how string field theory can be used to check certain conjectures about the tachyon vacuum. We then discuss the problem of trying to globally gauge fix string field theory. We end with a discussion of various results in the quantization of the theory.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Physics.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2004

Author dc:creator

• Ellwood, Ian Thomas, 1977-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Washington Taylor.

• Physics.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/29455

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/29455