An overview of string theory and string models
Pierre Binétruy · 2006
Abstract It is widely believed that string theory provides the consistent framework which lies behind low energy supersymmetry. The purpose of this chapter is to provide a non-technical overview of the main ideas of string theory1, as well as to present some of the new concepts which arise and which might lead to new developments in the study of the low energy theory. Due to lack of space, there is no room for doing justice to the richness of the complete string picture and we refer the reader to other monographs for a more thorough treatment e.g. [312]. However, string models are to be considered very seriously because they provide a complete picture of fundamental physics, including gravity. As such, they should be considered in their entirety because they have an internal coherence. Thus using them for low energy phenomenology (or cosmology) requires us at least to be aware of the general consistency of the string picture.