Lecturer: Ling Lin
Duration: 12 hours
Learning outcomes: At the end of the course the student will become familiar with modern ideas and advanced techniques in string theory. In the academic year 2025/26, this course will give an introduction to the “Swampland program” — the idea that quantum gravity poses stringent constraints on effective field theories with dynamical gravity. The lectures will cover general black hole arguments for the absence of global symmetries and the completeness hypothesis, as well as the main “conjectures” motivated by string compactifications. No prior knowledge of string theory is needed, but a solid understanding of QFT and the willingness to accept advanced results without seeing the explicit derivation will be useful.
Exam: Oral exam (~20min) with questions based on topics covered in the lectures.
Period: Apr 2026
Dates: please look here