Texts:

• J. Polchinski, String Theory, vols 1 and 2, amazon links vol 1, vol 2, errata
• S. Schrans, A companion reader to Polchinski's string theory
• D. Tong's lecture notes, available on his webpage and at arXiv:0908.0333

Some other useful references:

• M. Green, J. Schwarz, E. Witten, Superstring theory, volumes 1 and 2.
• R. Blumenhagen, D. Lust, S. Theisen, Basic concepts of string theory (Springer, 2013), updated from D. Lust, S. Theisen, Lectures on string theory (Lecture notes in physics 346, Springer-Verlag, 1989).
• P. Ginsparg, ``Applied conformal field theory,'' Les Houches lectures 1988, hep-th/9108028
• P. di Francesco, P. Mathieu, D. Senechal, Conformal field theory (Springer, 1997).
• K. Becker, M. Becker, J. Schwarz, String theory and M-theory: a modern introduction (Cambridge University Press, 2007).
• A. Salam, E. Sezgin, Supergravities in diverse dimensions, volumes 1 and 2 (North-Holland/World Scientific, 1989).
• H. Georgi, Lie algebras for particle physics
• R. Slansky, "Group theory for unified model building," Phys. Rep. 79 (1981) 1-128
• McKay, Patera, Tables of dimensions, indices, and branching rules for representations of simple Lie algebras

Office hours: Tues-Thurs 2-3:30

Class will not meet on Thurs March 19, and also not on Tues March 31.

Homework

Handouts

Last modified: January 4, 2026.
ersharpe at phys