Tachyon Condensation in String Theory
In the late 1990s, Ashoke Sen conjectured that the tachyons carried by open strings attached to D-branes in string theory reflect the instability of the D-branes with respect to their complete annihilation. The total energy carried by these tachyons has been calculated in string field theory; it agrees with the total energy of the D-branes, and all other tests have confirmed Sen's conjecture as well. Tachyons therefore became an active area of interest in the early 2000s.
The character of closed-string tachyon condensation is more subtle, though the first steps towards our understanding of their fate have been made by Adams, Polchinski, and Silverstein, in the case of twisted closed string tachyons, and by Simeon Hellerman and Ian Swanson, in a wider array of cases. The fate of the closed string tachyon in the 26-dimensional bosonic string theory remains unknown, though recent progress has revealed interesting new developments.
Read more about this topic: Tachyon Condensation
Famous quotes containing the words condensation, string and/or theory:
“Entification begins at arm’s length; the points of condensation in the primordial conceptual scheme are things glimpsed, not glimpses.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)
“Amongst the learned the lawyers claim first place, the most self-satisfied class of people, as they roll their rock of Sisyphus and string together six hundred laws in the same breath, no matter whether relevant or not, piling up opinion on opinion and gloss on gloss to make their profession seem the most difficult of all. Anything which causes trouble has special merit in their eyes.”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536)
“Psychotherapy—The theory that the patient will probably get well anyway, and is certainly a damned ijjit.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)