This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
Recently there has been a lot of progress studying string theory using a web of duality symmetries relating non-perturbative effects to perturbative ones. This project involves studies in string theory with emphasis on the supergravity limit of the theory. Some of the goals of the research include:
1) The classification of supersymmetric (SUSY) solutions in various dimensions. Here the approach is the classification of SUSY solutions using Killing symmetries, represented as bispinors. 2) The study of the Anti-de Sitter / Conformal Field Theory (AdS/CFT)correspondence, specifically incorporating higher derivative corrections into the classical solutions on the Supergravity side of the correspondence to see their implications for Conformal Field Theory. 3) Development of the non-perturbative theory underlying string theory 4) Phenomenological implications of string theory, specifically in cosmology using cosmological solutions to Supergravity.
Many of the broader implications follow from the PI being the director of the Center for Advanced Mathematical Sciences (CAMS) at the American University in Beirut (AUB). This center has a significant potential for impact on science in Lebanon and in the region. This connection has the potential for "broad impact" in a much more substantial sense than is customary for an individual investigator grant. The Center has a significant impact on the training of students, hosting various scientific workshops, summer schools and international conferences.
