SUPERSTRING PERTURBATION THEORY AT TWO-LOOPS
Duong H. Phong
Abstract:
In string perturbation theory, Feynman rules correspond to a measure on the
moduli space of Riemann surfaces, whose moments are the string scattering
amplitudes. This measure has been
difficult to determine, due to a geometric difficulty, which
is the occurrence of "supermoduli" at higher loop orders. Recently, this
difficulty has been overcome at 2-loops, which is
the lowest order where supermoduli arise. This talk is devoted to
a survey of recent progresses and open problems in this direction, including
models with broken supersymmetry, global
corrections to the BRST formalism, two-dimensional superholomorphicity and
holomorphicity, and string-induced
corrections to the Einstein-Hilbert action.