String theory is a still-developing mathematical approach to theoretical physics, whose original building blocks are one-dimensional extended objects called strings. Unlike the point particles in quantum field theories like the standard model of particle physics, strings interact in a way that is almost uniquely specified by mathematical self-consistency, forming an apparently valid quantum theory of gravity.
Since its birth as the dual resonance model which described the strongly interacting hadrons as strings, the term string theory has changed to include any of a group of related superstring theories and larger frameworks such as M-theory, which unite them. One shared property of all these theories is the holographic principle.
String theorists have not yet completely described these theories, nor have they determined if or how these theories relate to the physical universe. The logical coherence of the approach, however, and the fact that string theory can include all older theories of physics, have led many physicists to believe that such a connection is possible. In particular, string theory is the first candidate for the theory of everything, a way to describe all the known natural forces (gravitational, electromagnetic, weak and strong) and matter (quarks and leptons) in a mathematically complete system. On the other hand, many detractors criticise string theory because it has not yet provided experimentally testable predictions.
Like any other quantum theory of gravity, it is widely believed that testing the theory experimentally would be prohibitively expensive, requiring feats of engineering on a solar-system scale. Although string theory, like any other scientific theory, is falsifiable in principle, critics maintain that it is unfalsifiable for the foreseeable future, and so should not be called science.
String theory is of interest to many physicists because of the mathematics involved, and because of the large number of forms that the theories can take. String theory strongly suggests that spacetime has eleven dimensions, as opposed to the usual three space and one time, but the theory can easily describe universes with four observable spacetime dimensions as well.
String theories include objects more general than strings, called branes. These are black-holes charged with a differential form vector potential which has more than one index, a different type of electricity and magnetism where the fundamental objects are extended. By studying certain p-branes and identifying them with D-branes, endpoints for strings, certain types of string theory are shown to be equivalent to certain types of more traditional gauge theory. Research on this equivalence has led to new insights on quantum chromodynamics, the fundamental theory of the strong nuclear force.
Basic properties
String theory can be formulated in terms of an action principle, either the Nambu-Goto action or the Polyakov action, which describes how strings move through space and time. In the absence of external interactions, string dynamics are governed by tension and kinetic energy, which combine to produce oscillations. The quantum mechanics of strings implies these oscillations take on discrete vibrational modes, the spectrum of the theory.
On distance scales larger than the string radius, each oscillation mode behaves as a different species of particle, with its mass, spin and charge determined by the strings dynamics. Splitting and recombinations of string correspond to particle emission and absorption, giving rise to the interactions between particles.
An analogy for strings' modes of vibration is a guitar string's production of multiple but distinct musical notes. In the analogy, different notes correspond to different particles.
String theory includes both open strings, which have two distinct endpoints, and closed strings making a complete loop. The two types of string behave in slightly different ways, yielding two different spectra. For example, in most string theories, one of the closed string modes is the graviton, and one of the open string modes is the photon. Because the two ends of an open string can always meet and connect, forming a closed string, there are no string theories without closed strings.
The earliest string model — the bosonic string, which incorporated only bosons, describes — in low enough energies — a quantum gravity theory, which also includes (if open strings are incorporated as well) gauge fields such as the photon (or, more generally, any gauge theory). However, this model has problems. Most importantly, the theory has a fundamental instability, believed to result in the decay (at least partially) of space-time itself. Additionally, as the name implies, the spectrum of particles contains only bosons, particles which, like the photon, obey particular rules of behavior. Roughly speaking, bosons are the constituents of radiation, but not of matter, which is made of fermions. Investigating how a string theory may include fermions in its spectrum led to the invention of supersymmetry, a mathematical relation between bosons and fermions. String theories which include fermionic vibrations are now known as superstring theories; several different kinds have been described, but all are now thought to be different limits of M-theory.
Some qualitative properties of quantum strings can be understood in a fairly intuitive fashion. For example, quantum strings have tension, much like regular strings made of twine; this tension is considered a fundamental parameter of the theory. The tension of a quantum string is closely related to its size. Consider a closed loop of string, left to move through space without external forces. Its tension will tend to contract it into a smaller and smaller loop. Classical intuition suggests that it might shrink to a single point, but this would violate Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. The characteristic size of the string loop will be a balance between the tension force, acting to make it small, and the uncertainty effect, which keeps it "stretched". Consequently, the minimum size of a string is related to the string tension.
