This is a long thread for a chapter-by-chapter review and a reading guide for volume 1 of Polchinski’s book on string theory. Familiarity with the basics of QFT and GR is required (you will need these pre-requisites to read the book anyway)
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#physics #scicomm A guide to this review

This is a review and a reading guide for Polchinski’s first volume. Polchinski’s two volumes on string theory are still considered to be the best and most comprehensive resources to learn string theory.
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#physics #scicomm

This post summarizes the reasoning that goes into deriving Einstein’s field equation. There is more than one way to derive this field equation but I will focus on the most conventional path to derive it. 1/28
#Physics #scicomm For this post, a basic understanding of tensor analysis and special relativity is assumed to understand this post. 2/28
#Physics #scicomm

This is a post about the generalization of the concept of global symmetries. This area has been a very active area of research for the last 8 years or so. 1/28
#Physics #scicomm #research A basic understanding of global symmetries unitary operators (acting on quantum states and operators) and local operators is required to read this post. This topic may look esoteric but it has applications in well-known theories of physics, including the standard model. 2/28

This is a brief post about nongeometric backgrounds in string theory. We will define these terms precisely in the following but naively, these can be thought of as "spaces" on which a string moves that don't have a "geometric" interpretation. 1/n
#Physics #scicomm A basic understanding of field theory is required. I'll try to make it as accessible as I can (without distorting the results).
In QFT, the word "background" usually means a set of fields that are present in the theory but whose dynamics aren't part of the theory. 2/n

Let's do a small thread on D-Branes and their charges. Before starting, let's review some familiar concepts so that it is easy to understand what follows. 1/13
#Physics #SciComm #Dbrane #strings #research In electrodynamics (using Newtonian space and time) the magnetic field is represented by a vector potential A. In order to describe the electric field, we need another scalar quantity called the scalar potential. 2/13