Topics on D-branes and Holography

• Main Author: Smedbäck, Mikael
• Format: Doctoral Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Uppsala universitet, Institutionen för teoretisk fysik 2004
• Subjects: Theoretical physics; theoretical physics; string theory; D-branes; dualities; AdS/CFT; spin chains; Bethe ansatz; boundary conformal field theory; conformal bootstrap; tachyon condensation; string field theory; loop quantum gravity; black holes; area spectrum; Hawking radiation; holographic principle; Teoretisk fysik; Physics; Fysik
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-4478; http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:isbn:91-554-6012-7

We discuss various aspects of D-branes in string theory and holography in string theory and loop quantum gravity. One way to study D-branes is from a microscopic perspective, using conformal field theory techniques. For example, we investigate the question of how D-branes can be introduced into orbifolded theories. Another way to study D-branes is from a space-time perspective. An example is provided by unstable D-branes, where we compute an effective action describing the decay of a bosonic D-brane. The holographic principle is a proposed duality which suggests that a theory in any region has a dual description on the boundary. We explore two examples: (1) The area law for the entropy of a black hole in the framework of loop quantum gravity, related to particular regularizations of the area operator. (2) The AdS/CFT correspondence proposal, where we investigate a string pulsating on AdS using spin chains.