String Theory and M-Theory: A Modern Introduction : Katrin Becker , Melanie Becker , and John H. Schwarz , Cambridge U. Press, New York, 2007. $80.00 (739 pp.). ISBN 978-0-521-86069-7
It has been 40 years since Gabriele Veneziano wrote his celebrated scattering amplitude, which marked the beginning of string theory. In the intervening years, the theory has morphed into one of the most interesting fields of scientific study, providing new theoretical vistas in mathematics, quantum field theory, and the nature of black holes, and possible guideposts for physics beyond the standard model, such as supersymmetry and extra space dimensions. Those events were described in their masterful two volumes of Superstring Theory (Cambridge University Press, 1987) by Michael Green, John Schwarz, and Edward Witten. In 1998, Joseph Polchinski’s String Theory , also a two-volume presentation from the same publisher, included the latest breakthroughs.
Today, Katrin Becker, Melanie Becker, and Schwarz have written String Theory and M-Theory : A Modern Introduction, a one-volume textbook that covers not only earlier progress in string theory but also the mind-boggling developments of the last decade: the emergence of 11-dimensional M-theory; the AdS/CFT (anti-de Sitter/con-formal field theory) correspondence; flux compactification and moduli stabilization; black hole statistical mechanics; and the beginnings of string-based cosmologies. The work teams up one of the celebrated founding fathers of modern superstring theory with two much younger authors who have also contributed much to the field. The Beckers, sisters who are both physics professors at Texas A&M University, and Schwarz, the Harold Brown Professor of Theoretical Physics at Caltech, are eminently competent to present the complicated subjects. String Theory and M-Theory promises to become the new standard text.
The book is well written and covers a set of judiciously chosen topics. Compared with its predecessors, it has more pedagogical value. Each of its 12 chapters begins with a descriptive introduction, which is bound to be useful to those students and researchers, such as string phenomenologists, who need to understand the concepts without being burdened by technical details. Those preambles provide a road map for the sometimes confusing topics and give some sense of perspective to the necessarily technical presentations that follow. More significant, the technical material is supplemented by exercises that are well chosen to illustrate the most difficult concepts; though many have accompanying solutions, the more dedicated students will eagerly work through those that do not.
Graduate students with some training in mathematics and a degree of familiarity with quantum field theory will enjoy String Theory and M-Theory . In writing a self-contained text for the enormous and still-evolving subject area, the authors had to make compromises. One volume may not have sufficed to cover the developments of the past decade. Thus, important subjects, such as M-theory and the profound AdS/CFT connection, are not treated with a level of detail that will satisfy the most inquisitive readers. Explicit calculations, absent except in the exercises, would have further enhanced the pedagogical value of the book. Nevertheless, it is a welcome addition to the literature and will most likely be the required text for those physicists who intend to study the many facets of this fascinating subject. Further understanding of string theory is bound to produce more surprises. In the meantime, String Theory and M-Theory is the string textbook—at least until the next string revolution.
