Physics 137, String Theory

Professor: Ken Intriligator, Mayer Hall 5234

Office hours: Wednesdays 3-4pm and by appointment.

Teaching Assistant: Zhengdi Sun (z5sun@ucsd.edu)

Office hours: By appointment.

Text: A First Course in String Theory (2nd edition) , by Barton Zwiebach. I have requested that it be put on reserves at Giesel.

Course Times : TTh 2:00-3:20 pm, MH5301. Discussion session with Zhengdi: Monday 3-4pm, MH5301. Midterm: Tuesday May 7, in lecture; Final: Tuesday June 11, 3-6pm.

Grading: Weekly HW will be assigned (no late HWs will be accepted). There will also be occasional in-class quizzes, and a final exam. Homework: 25%; midterm: 25%; final exam: 50%. Feel free to work in groups on the HW, but you still need to turn in your own work: do not just copy other's. Also, copying from online solutions etc is strictly not allowed. Violations will be referred to the academic integrity office.

My class from 2018. MIT open courseware site.

String Theory Wikipedia page (includes many links, and references)..

Just for fun:When I created this course, I intentionally chose number 137, just for a bit of fun ; here is more. Here is a remarkably informative song about string theory. Also check out Lenny Susskind's lectures on YouTube!

lecture topic (and link to notes) Homework (from Zwiebach)
4/2 Introduction   HW 1, Due 4/9       
4/4 Introduction, cont.          
4/9 Relativity, cont.          
4/11 Extra dimensions, E & M and relativity   HW 2 (due 4/16)       
4/16 Extra dimensions, E & M and relativity, cont.   3.7, 3.8, 3.10, 18.1 (Due 4/23)       
4/18 E&M field Lagrangian. Non-relativistic string          
4/23 String Lagrangians   HW 4 (Due 4/30)        
4/25 Nambu Goto string          
4/30 The NG string and reparam inv   HW5 (Due 5/9): 6.9, 6.11, 7.2, 7.5        
5/2 String motion. Worldsheet currents          
5/7 Midterm          
5/9 Conservation laws.   8.5, 8.7 (due 5/14)        
5/14 Lightcone strings.          
5/16 Lightcone strings, cont. Klein Gordon Field   9.3, 9.5, 10.1 (due 5/21)        
5/21 Field quantization          
5/23 Quantization, cont   10.5, 11.6, 12.1 (Due Thurs 5/30)        
5/28 Quantization of relativistic particle and open string          
5/30 String quantization, cont.   12.3, 13.1, 14.1 (Due Thurs 6/6)        
6/4 Closed string quantization and spectrum          
6/6 String partition function. T-duality, etc.