Introduction to String Theory and some of its phenomenological aspects

G. ALDAZABAL

V Latn American Symposium on Highe Energy Physics

World Scientific

Año: 2006; p. 15 - 50

In these notes we present a brief introduction to string theory. As a motivationwe start by exposing some of the many striking achievements of the Standardmodel of fundamental interactions but also some of its limitations. We introducestring theory through a discussion of perturbative closed bosonic string. Since noknowledge of supersymmetry is assumed the different, consistent, superstrings arejust qualitatively motivated. D-branes and open string are then discussed andsome rough idea about dualities and non perturbative effects is advanced. Weend by illustrating the idea of brane worlds as a possible framework to embed theStandard model in a string theory context.