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The basic idea, simple and revolutionary at the same time, to replace the concept of a point particle with a one-dimensional string, has opened up a whole new field of research. Even today, four decades later, its multifaceted consequences are still not fully conceivable.

Up to now string theory has offered a new way to view each particle:

as different excitations of the same fundamental object. It has celebrated success in discovering the graviton in its spectrum, and it has naturally led scientists to posit space-times with more than four dimensions-which in turn has triggered numerous interesting developments in fields as varied as condensed matter physics and pure mathematics.

This book collects pedagogical lectures by leading experts in string theory, introducing the non-specialist reader to some of the newest developments in the field. The carefully selected topics are at the cutting edge of research in string theory and include new developments in topological strings, or AdS/CFT dualities, as well as newly emerging subfields such as doubled field theory and holography in the hydrodynamic regime.

The contributions to this book have been selected and arranged in such a way as to form a self-contained, graduate level textbook.

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String Theory 101.- D-branes and Orientifolds.- Introduction to Gauge/Gravity Duality.- Holography for Strongly Coupled Media.- Quantum Black Holes.- Lectures on Topological String Theory.- Doubled Field Theory, T-duality and Courant-brackets.

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"This is an advanced textbook of engineering mathematics coupled with a brief introduction to string theory 101. ... Researchers in string theory and quantum mechanics will greatly benefit from the books pearls of wisdom and creativity. I highly recommend this advanced book of physics primarily for theoreticians in physical sciences." (Joseph J. Grenier, Amazon.com, July, 2015)

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