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Superstring theory. Proceedings of the 2002 String theory international conference, Hangzhou, China, August 12–15, 2002. (English) Zbl 1144.81006

Advanced Lectures in Mathematics (ALM) 1. Somerville, MA: International Press; Beijing: Higher Education Press (ISBN 978-1-57146-131-5/pbk). ii, 348 p. (2008).
This book contains the proceedings of the 2002 String Theory International Conference held in celebration of the opening of the Center of Mathematical Sciences at Zhejiang University. Given the time that has passed since then some of the contributions reporting on work in progress may be outdated by now.
The 20 articles totalling 348 pages cover a wide range of topics relating directly or only marginally to string theory. The more pedagogical articles comprise an introduction to braneworlds by S. Hawking (which does not contain a single formula) and two articles by E. Witten, one on gauge theory and gravity and the other on mathematical problems posed by quantum field theory.
While some articles are rather technical and focused on special research topics, others are accessible to a broader readership because they are self-contained. Among these I mention “Seiberg-Witten Theory, Symplectic Forms, and Hamiltonian Theory of Solitons” by D. D’Hoker, I. Krichever and D. H. Phong; “M-theory on Manifolds with Exceptional Holonomy” by S. Gukov; “Some Remarks on Constant Curvature Spaces” by R. G. Cai; “Symmetries, Matrices and de Sitter Gravity” by Y.-H. Gao; and “Correspondence Principle in a PP-wave Background” by M. Li.
Further topics that are not directly related to string theory are stability conditions and the braid group, quintessence cosmology in Brans-Dicke theory, and the entropy of Kerr-Newman black holes due to an arbitrary spin field.

MSC:

81-06 Proceedings, conferences, collections, etc. pertaining to quantum theory
81T30 String and superstring theories; other extended objects (e.g., branes) in quantum field theory
00B25 Proceedings of conferences of miscellaneous specific interest
81T60 Supersymmetric field theories in quantum mechanics
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