These lecture notes were prepared in LaTeX by Bryan Owens, an MIT student. He used handwritten notes taken in class by Kayla Jacobs, an MIT graduate, in producing them. Professor Zwiebach has not thoroughly proofread these notes but believes they will be useful to people that want to know what goes on during lecture and what material gets covered
Lecture note files.
| SES # |
TOPICS |
LECTURE NOTES |
| 1 |
Announcements, introduction
Lorentz transformations
Light-cone coordinates
|
(PDF) |
| 2 |
Energy and momentum
Compact dimensions, orbifolds
Quantum mechanics and the square well
|
(PDF) |
| 3 |
Relativistic electrodynamics
Gauss' law
Gravitation and Planck's length
|
(PDF) |
| 4 |
Gravitational potentials, compactification, and large extra dimensions |
(PDF) |
| 5 |
Nonrelativistic strings and Lagrangian mechanics |
(PDF) |
| 6 |
The relativistic point particle: Action, reparametrizations, and equations of motion |
(PDF) |
| 7 |
Area formula for spatial surfaces |
(PDF) |
| 8 |
Area formula for spatial surfaces (cont.) |
(PDF) |
| 9 |
Change of variables |
(PDF) |
| 10 |
Relativistic strings: Nambu-Goto action, equations of motion and boundary conditions |
(PDF) |
| 11 |
Static gauge, transverse velocity, and string action
Motion of free open string endpoints
|
(PDF) |
| 12 |
The sigma-parametrization
Equations of motion and virasoro constraints
General motion for open strings
Rotating open strings
|
(PDF) |
| 13 |
Periodicity conditions for the motion of closed strings
The formation of cusps
Conserved currents in E&M
Conserved charges in lagrangian mechanics
|
(PDF) |
| 14 |
Momentum charges for the string
Lorentz charges for the strings
Angular momentum of the rotating string
Discuss alpha' and the string length l_s
General gauges: fixing tau and natural units
|
(PDF) |
| 15 |
Solution of the open string motion in the light-cone gauge |
(PDF) |
| 16 |
Light-cone fields and particles |
(PDF) |
| 17 |
Light-cone fields and particles (cont.) |
(PDF) |
| 18 |
Open strings |
(PDF) |
| 19 |
Critical dimension
Constructing the state space
Tachyons
|
(PDF) |
| 20 |
Closed strings |
(PDF) |
| 21 |
Wrap-up of closed strings
Superstrings
|
(PDF) |
| 22 |
Superstrings (cont.) |
(PDF) |
| 23 |
Closed strings
Heterotic string theory
|
(PDF) |
| 24 |
Dp-branes
Parallel Dp's
|
(PDF) |
| 25 |
Dp-branes (cont.) |
(PDF) |
| 26 |
Final exam review |
(PDF) |