M-theory | EPFL Graph Search

Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?

Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of GraphSearch.

M-theory is a theory in physics that unifies all consistent versions of superstring theory. Edward Witten first conjectured the existence of such a theory at a string theory conference at the University of Southern California in 1995 (M-Theory - Edward Witten (1995)). Witten's announcement initiated a flurry of research activity known as the second superstring revolution. Prior to Witten's announcement, string theorists had identified five versions of superstring theory. Although these theories initially appeared to be very different, work by many physicists showed that the theories were related in intricate and nontrivial ways. Physicists found that apparently distinct theories could be unified by mathematical transformations called S-duality and T-duality. Witten's conjecture was based in part on the existence of these dualities and in part on the relationship of the string theories to a field theory called eleven-dimensional supergravity. Although a complete formulation of M-theory is not known, such a formulation should describe two- and five-dimensional objects called branes and should be approximated by eleven-dimensional supergravity at low energies. Modern attempts to formulate M-theory are typically based on matrix theory or the AdS/CFT correspondence. According to Witten, M should stand for "magic", "mystery" or "membrane" according to taste, and the true meaning of the title should be decided when a more fundamental formulation of the theory is known. Investigations of the mathematical structure of M-theory have spawned important theoretical results in physics and mathematics. More speculatively, M-theory may provide a framework for developing a unified theory of all of the fundamental forces of nature. Attempts to connect M-theory to experiment typically focus on compactifying its extra dimensions to construct candidate models of the four-dimensional world, although so far none has been verified to give rise to physics as observed in high-energy physics experiments.

About this result

This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.

Related publications (1)

Related concepts (70)

Related courses (50)

Related lectures (491)

Supersymmetric vacua in N=2 supergravity

Paul Smyth

We use the embedding tensor formalism to analyse maximally symmetric backgrounds of N = 2 gauged supergravities which have the full N = 2 supersymmetry. We state the condition for N = 2 vacua and disc

Springer2012

Group Actions: Theory and Examples

Explores concrete examples of group actions on sets, focusing on actions that do not change the set.

Active Learning Session: Group Theory

Explores active learning in Group Theory, focusing on products, coproducts, adjunctions, and natural transformations.

Free Abelian Groups and Homomorphisms

Explores free abelian groups, homomorphisms, and exact sequences in the context of different categories.

String theory

In physics, string theory is a theoretical framework in which the point-like particles of particle physics are replaced by one-dimensional objects called strings. String theory describes how these strings propagate through space and interact with each other. On distance scales larger than the string scale, a string looks just like an ordinary particle, with its mass, charge, and other properties determined by the vibrational state of the string.

M-theory

Superstring theory

Superstring theory is an attempt to explain all of the particles and fundamental forces of nature in one theory by modeling them as vibrations of tiny supersymmetric strings. 'Superstring theory' is a shorthand for supersymmetric string theory because unlike bosonic string theory, it is the version of string theory that accounts for both fermions and bosons and incorporates supersymmetry to model gravity. Since the second superstring revolution, the five superstring theories (Type I, Type IIA, Type IIB, HO and HE) are regarded as different limits of a single theory tentatively called M-theory.

MATH-211: Group Theory

Après une introduction à la théorie des catégories, nous appliquerons la théorie générale au cas particulier des groupes, ce qui nous permettra de bien mettre en perspective des notions telles que quo

PHYS-314: Quantum physics II

L'objectif de ce cours est de familiariser l'étudiant avec les concepts, les méthodes et les conséquences de la physique quantique. En particulier, le moment cinétique, la théorie de perturbation, les

EE-556: Mathematics of data: from theory to computation

This course provides an overview of key advances in continuous optimization and statistical analysis for machine learning. We review recent learning formulations and models as well as their guarantees