Symmetries, and Symmetry Breaking in String Theory

Dear Colleagues,

Symmetries play a key role in modern physics. Conceptually, they provide organizing principles for building models. Pragmatically, they provide selection rules which simplify many computations. Phenomenologically, symmetries provide rationales for hierarchy problems and novel discoveries. To wit, the framework of (spontaneous) symmetry breaking drives many features of effective field theories and collective phenomena, and the structure of the Higgs mechanism in the standard model has led to correct predictions decades in advance.

A natural step in this direction is the inception of supersymmetry and its gravitational counterpart, supergravity. In addition to completing the structure of weakly coupled relativistic quantum fields with the gravitino, supersymmetry quickly found a spotlight in model building for particle physics beyond the standard model due to its attractive implications for electroweak hierarchy and dark matter problems.

String theory is a natural home for all these ideas, able to incorporate gravity, gauge interactions, and supersymmetry in a coherent quantum–mechanical framework. It is thus paramount to narrow down which kind of gauge groups, representations, and supercharges can survive its formidable consistency constraints.

In this Special Issue, we would like to explore how symmetries and their breaking or gauging arise in string theory and whether general lessons can be drawn from them.

Dr. Ivano Basile
Guest Editor

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• symmetry
• symmetry breaking
• supersymmetry
• gauge group
• quantum gravity
• string theory
• swampland
• anomaly
• string universality
• string landscape