This is a collection of important papers presented by an international group of outstanding scientists at a seminar on strings and symmetries held in Stony Brook. This volume contains reviews on modern string theory and particle physics, including supersymmetric quantization, supergravity, conformal field theory, topological field theory, string phenomenology, matrix models, and W gravity. This proceedings is both an excellent introduction as well as reference source for researchers.

The topics in this volume constitute a fitting tribute by distinguished physicists and mathematicians. They cover strings, conformal field theories, W and Virasoro algebras, topological field theory, quantum groups, vertex and Hopf algebras, and non-commutative geometry. The relatively long contributions are pedagogical in style and address students as well as scientists.

Detailed, step-by-step introduction to the theoretical foundations of strings and branes, essential reading for graduate students and researchers.

Is there a vector space whose dimension is the golden ratio? Of course not—the golden ratio is not an integer! But this can happen for generalizations of vector spaces—objects of a tensor category. The theory of tensor categories is a relatively new field of mathematics that generalizes the theory of group representations. It has deep connections with many other fields, including representation theory, Hopf algebras, operator algebras, low-dimensional topology (in particular, knot theory), homotopy theory, quantum mechanics and field theory, quantum computation, theory of motives, etc. This book gives a systematic introduction to this theory and a review of its applications. While giving a detailed overview of general tensor categories, it focuses especially on the theory of finite tensor categories and fusion categories (in particular, braided and modular ones), and discusses the main results about them with proofs. In particular, it shows how the main properties of finite-dimensional Hopf algebras may be derived from the theory of tensor categories. Many important results are presented as a sequence of exercises, which makes the book valuable for students and suitable for graduate courses. Many applications, connections to other areas, additional results, and references are discussed at the end of each chapter.

Contains selection of expository and research article by lecturers at the school. Highlights current interests of researchers working at the interface between string theory and algebraic supergravity, supersymmetry, D-branes, the McKay correspondence andFourer-Mukai transform.

Quarks, Symmetries and Strings is a book that reflects the rich diversity of current research in physics: it describes quantum chromodynamics, quark phenomenology, superstring theory, supersymmetry, matrix models, statistical methods, superconductivity and neural networks. The book also reflects the diversity of Dr Bunji Sakita's scientific work. Dr Sakita has made seminal contributions in many of these areas. The book celebrates the many path-breaking ideas he pioneered which still cross-fertilize many of the most active areas of current research.

String theory is one of the most exciting and challenging areas of modern theoretical physics. This book guides the reader from the basics of string theory to recent developments. It introduces the basics of perturbative string theory, world-sheet supersymmetry, space-time supersymmetry, conformal field theory and the heterotic string, before describing modern developments, including D-branes, string dualities and M-theory. It then covers string geometry and flux compactifications, applications to cosmology and particle physics, black holes in string theory and M-theory, and the microscopic origin of black-hole entropy. It concludes with Matrix theory, the AdS/CFT duality and its generalizations. This book is ideal for graduate students and researchers in modern string theory, and will make an excellent textbook for a one-year course on string theory. It contains over 120 exercises with solutions, and over 200 homework problems with solutions available on a password protected website for lecturers at www.cambridge.org/9780521860697.