Introduction to Superstrings and M-Theory

From the reviews Foundations of Physics, on the first edition: "... the dedicated reader...will be well versed in this fascinating area of theoretical physics." Physics Today, on the first edition: "...presents a pedagogical survey on string theory. It covers material from early developments to present-day research ... divided into three parts ... results of quantization, string field theory, and phenomenology ... an impressive effort..." FOUNDATIONS OF PHYSICS "Kaku's book, at 568 pages, is a comprehensive, self-contained text on string theory...[It] contains useful summaries of mathematical topics such as index theory, cohomology, and Kahler manifolds. This is a book for the really serious student of string theory; the dedicated reader who emerges after page 568 will be well versed in this fascinating area of theoretical physics."

• I First Quantization and Path Integrals.- 1 Path Integrals and Point Particles.- 2 Nambu—Goto Strings.- 3 Superstrings.- 4 Conformal Field Theory and Kac-Moody Algebras.- 5 Multiloops and Teichmüller Spaces.- II Second Quantization and the Search for Geometry.- 6 Light Cone Field Theory.- 7 BRST Field Theory.- III Phenomenology and Model Building.- 8 Anomalies and the Atiyah—Singer Theorem.- 9 Heterotic Strings and Compactification.- 10 Calabi—Yau Spaces and Orbifolds.- IV M-Theory.- 11 M-Theory and Duality.- 12 Compactifications and BPS States.- 13Solitons, D-Branes, and Black Holes.- A.1 A Brief Introduction to Group Theory.- A.2 A Brief Introduction to General Relativity.- A.3 A Brief Introduction to the Theory of Forms.- A.4 A Brief Introduction to Supersymmetry.- A.5 A Brief Introduction to Supergravity.- A.6 Notation.- References.