November 28, 2002

The quantum structure of spacetime

and the geometric nature of fundamental interactions

Second periodic report

Short title: Quantum spacetime

Contract no.: HPRN-CT-2000-00131
Period: 1/10/2001 — 15/6/2002
Network co-ordinator: Antoine Van Proeyen, K.U. Leuven,
Institute for theoretical physics
K.U. Leuven
Celestijnenlaan 200D,
B-3001 Leuven,
Belgium
tel: +32/16/327240, fax: +32/16/327986
e-mail: Antoine.VanProeyen@fys.kuleuven.ac.be
second periodic report HPRN-CT-2000-00131; Quantum spacetime 1

Remarks
Due to the fact that the mid-term evaluation of the network is close to the end of the second
year, and the mid-term report should be ready one month before, the second year report has
been advanced. In this way the mid-term report can be an amalgamation of the first two
periodic reports. Therefore we cover here the period 1/10/01 — 15/6/02.

A Research results
In the first two years of running of the contract, there have been substantial advances along
the lines of research foreseen by the Joint Programme of Work but we also have to report the
opening up of new allied research directions, together with the reassessing of some aspects of
our general perspective. As mentioned in the contract, it is difficult to predict the important
specific breakthroughs which can occur at any time and our research programme consists of
participating and actively pursuing any major breakthrough. This is realized by following
closely and possibly anticipating the dynamically and rapidly evolving landscape of our own field
which is the domain of String Theory, M-theory and Supergravity in all its aspects, ramifications
and applications. Both in the first and in the second year, the development of our Joint Research
Work has followed a pattern that is consistent with the above mentioned general strategy, so
that it has actively paralleled, in some instances anticipated or promoted, and always been
essential part of the general world-wide development of this research field. We already stated
this in the first year report, where we summarized the advances realized in the first year. We
could just add the new advances obtained in the second year, yet we feel that we can give
a better perspective by using a two year vantage point. Hence we write this second periodic
report unifying into a single presentation the results achieved in the the first and second year.
Occasionally we shall mention what is specifically new in the second year in order to give a
faithful image of the evolution occurring inside our field and our joint work. In any case the
advances realized by the network are best described by summarizing the scientific highlights
attained while developing our project.

A.1 Scientific highlights

The highlights of specific results obtained by the network are summarized in tables 1, 2, 3,
where they are also cross-checked with the research issues mentioned in the contract as points
a1, . . . , e5. In a shorter form, these are

A: Dynamics Geometry and Symmetry

a1: Conserved charges, asymptotic properties of supergravity
a2: Non-perturbative monopole & instanton effects.
a3: Orientifolds & non-perturbative states
a4: Understanding duality and extended gauge symmetry
a5: Topological field theory
B : Supersymmetry and Susy breaking
b1: Heterotic Type I duality Fayet–Iliopoulos terms
b2: Boundary states and non susy branes
second periodic report HPRN-CT-2000-00131; Quantum spacetime 2

Code Highligts Leu Ut Pa Lon Cop Ber Bo Neu To Pad Fra He

To
Bru Gro Pot P. Mi 1 Sis Mi 2 Na Ge

Classification of D branes
using K theory, CFT and
1 a1 boundary states XX
Randall-Sundrum brane
2 a1,a4 tensions XX XX XX

3 a2 Inst. moduli space in N=2 XX

Dual description of little
4 a2 string theory XX XX
D1-D5 systems, RG
5 a2,d1 running, D-inst. XX

Orbifold compactification &

6 a3 duality with M-theory XX
Understanding NS5 branes
7 aa6 and holography XX
Hypermultiplets and Sugra
8 b, ff2 gaugings XX XX XX XX XX
New aspects of susy
9 b1,b3 breaking in d=4 XX
Boundary CFT, tachyon
condensation, non susy
10 b2 branes XX XX XX
Scherk-Schwarz SUSY
11 b3 breaking XX XX
Criteria for consistent
12 bb4 truncations to lower N XX XX
SC algebras in arbitrary
13 bb5 dimension and signature XX XX
5-branes, anomalies and
14 c1 dyons XX
Wrapping 5 branes and
15 c1,ff1 topological F.T. XX
Cosm. constant problem
clarified with braneworld
16 c2,ff2 scenario XX XX

Table 1: Summary of the scientific highlights. The first column contains the code of the re-
search direction. The results are related to the contribution of the various nodes according to
the following legend: Leu=Leuven, Bru=Brussels, Ut=Utrecht, Gro=Groningen, Pa=Paris,
Lon=London, Cop=Copenhagen, Ber=Berlin, Bo=Bonn, Pot=Potsdam, Neu=Neuchatel,
To=Torino University, To.P=Torino Politecnico, Mi 1=Milano 1, Pad=Padova, Sis=SISSA
Trieste, Fra=Frascati, Mi 2=Milano 2 Bicocca, Na=Napoli, He=Heraklion. Used abbreviation-
s in titles: corr. = correspondence, cosm. = cosmological, F.T. = field theory, hol. = holonomy,
inst. = instanton, manif. = manifolds NC= non-commutative, RG = renormalization group,
SC = superconformal, sugra = supergravity, susy = supersymmetry
second periodic report HPRN-CT-2000-00131; Quantum spacetime 3

Code Highligts Leu Ut Pa Lon Cop Ber Bo Neu To Pad Fra He

To
Bru Gro Pot P. Mi 1 Sis Mi 2 Na Ge
Gradient flows of N=2
17 c2,ff2 sugra XX XX

Deconfinement transition
18 c4 order parameter XX
Explanation of the
heterotic / M theory duality
19 d on orbifolds XX
Inst. corrections from
20 d1 gauge/gravity corr. XX XX
String/Sugra duals of non-
conformal gauge theory
21 d1 with N=1,2 XX XX XX
High energy scattering in
22 d1 adS XX XX
General results on SC
23 d1,d2 algebras, shortening. XX

24 d1,ff2 Construction of F(4) sugra XX XX

Classification of D=9
25 d4 domain walls XX
Domain walls and gauged
26 d4 sugra theories XX XX XX XX
Susy in singular spaces
27 d4 and orientifolds XX XX
Holographic picture of
28 d4 Randall Sundrum model XX
Holography and discrete
29 d4 gravity XX
N=2 Black Hole and
30 d5 Entropy XX XX
Free energy of d=2 black
31 d5 hole XX XX
Stringy black holes and
32 d5 SL(2,R) group manif. XX
String states and Kerr
33 d5 black holes XX

Emergence of fermion
34 ff4 string from bosonic string XX XX

35 e2 D-branes in coset models XX XX XX

Superembedding, D3
36 e3,b3 branes, susy breaking XX

Lifting of domain walls to

37 ff1 M-theory and special hol. XX XX
Calabi Yau
compactifications with
38 ff1 fluxes XX XX

Table 2: Summary of the scientific highlights. continued, part 2

second periodic report HPRN-CT-2000-00131; Quantum spacetime 4

Code Highligts Leu Ut Pa Lon Cop Ber Bo Neu To Pad Fra He

To
Bru Gro Pot P. Mi 1 Sis Mi 2 Na Ge

Lifting of domain walls to

37 ff1 M-theory and special hol. XX XX
Calabi Yau
compactifications with
38 ff1 fluxes XX XX
Compactifications on
39 ff1 manif. of exceptional hol. XX XX
Deformation of conifolds
40 ff1 and G2 hol. manif. XX XX
Gravity in de Sitter space
41 ff2 and the dS/CFT corr. XX
d=6 de Sitter vacua in F(4)
42 ff2 sugra XX
Stable de Sitter vacua in
43 ff2 N=2, d=4 sugra XX XX XX

Non semisimple gaugings

44 ff2 of d=5,n=8 sugra XX XX XX

Compact and non-compact

45 ff2,d3 gaugings in d=3 and adS XX
Fractional Branes and ALE
46 ff3 manif. XX XX XX XX
Beta functions for
47 ff3 fractional branes XX XX
Tachyon potential and
48 ff4 String F.T. XX XX
D0-D2 system and
49 ff5 Quantum Hall system XX
Multiloop amplitudes in NC
50 ff6 string XX XX
51 ff6 NC F.T. and tachyons XX XX
Cartan frames on NC
52 ff6 spaces XX
Renormalization of NC
53 ff6 gauge theories XX XX XX
Non-Abelian Born-Infeld
54 ff7 action XX XX XX XX XX
Hyperbolic algebras and
55 ff8 cosm. XX XX
Anomalous dimensions to
all orders of perturbation
56 gg1 theory XX XX
Intersecting brane worlds
and embedding of the
standard model into string
57 gg2 theory XX
Derivation of Berkovits
formalism from the
58 gg3 superembedding XX

Table 3: Summary of the scientific highlights. continued, part 3

second periodic report HPRN-CT-2000-00131; Quantum spacetime 5

b3: Non pert. susy breaking via branes

C: Effective theories and compactification scales
c1: Effective field theory in diverse brane backgrounds
c2: Cosmological implication of M-theory and inflation
c3: Finite temp. string theory and M-theory
c4: M-theory implications for QCD phase transitions
D: Counting degrees of freedom
d1: Gauge Th. confinement and AdS
d2: Mass. string states and adS/CFT
d3: d = 2 CFT and adS
d4: Holography and domain walls
d5: Microscopic versus macroscopic Entropy
E: Fundamental definition of M theory
e1: Lorentz invariant string and 5-branes
e2: M-theory responses in gravity and gauge backgrounds
e3: Superembedding and non linear susy
e4: Integrable susy models
e5: Quantum theories of p > 2 p-branes

The codes with double letters (aa6, bb4, bb5, ff1,ff2,. . . , ff8, gg1,. . . , gg3 ) refer to the new
research directions mentioned in section B.3 of the present report. The essential issues in the
two year development of our field and in the joint work of our network are summarized in
the following discussion where they are organized by main issues. Whenever we mention the
explicit results achieved, we quote in square bracket the papers where such results have been
published. For brevity we refer to them by using the unambiguous coding of the e-print archive
(see introduction of section A.2) and we also use the following color coding:

1. Blue = Joint paper of the network

2. Green = Paper in collaboration with other networks

3. Black = Paper that does not qualify as joint publication

A.1.1 Gauge/gravity correspondence, holography, fractional branes, instanton

corrections, new brane-like solutions of supergravity (related to d1, ff3)

In the previous two or three years, a major breakthrough was the discovery of the adS/CFT
correspondence between superstring theory compactified on an anti de Sitter space times an
internal manifold, and a superconformal gauge theory living on the boundary of adS space.
This development opened an entire new perspective on the possibility of controlling the non-
perturbative regime of quantum gauge theories that describe the non-gravitational fundamental
interactions via classical calculations in supergravity or tree level superstring theory. To this
exciting and world-wide pursued research trend, our network contributed already in an essential
way in the period 1997-2000. Just as an illustration of such previous contributions see the final
report of the TMR project ERBFMRXCT96-0045, and e.g.:
1. hep-th/0006009, hep-th/9806072, hep-th/9802126, hep-th/9712239,
second periodic report HPRN-CT-2000-00131; Quantum spacetime 6

2. hep-th/9810126, hep-th/0002066, hep-th/9909047, hep-th/9903026,

3. hep-th/0007061, hep-th/0003068,
4. hep-th/0005220, hep-th/9907219, hep-th/9905134, hep-th/9903036,
5. hep-th/0002199, hep-th/9912107, hep-th/9907216, hep-th/9905226,
6. hep-th/9812066, hep-th/9804177, hep-th/9801206.

Soon it became evident that the adS/CFT correspondence is just the tip of a much larg-
er and profound iceberg, namely the general correspondence between quantum gauge theo-
ries and classical gravity beyond the conformal and supersymmetric regime. The quest for
extending the adS/CFT correspondence to nonconformal cases has been widely pursued a-
long different lines in the first year of the contract. One line consists of perturbing the
conformal field theory dual to a supergravity vacuum with relevant operators and studying
the holographic renormalization group flows associated with such perturbations. Importan-
t results in this directions were obtained by various collaborations of our network. See,
e.g., [hep-th/0103111, hep-th/0103230, hep-th/0105254, hep-th/0105270, hep-th/0107238, hep-
th/0201100, hep-th/0203203,
hep-th/0205061, hep-th/0206020]. Another important approach to the same problem is provid-
ed by the study of fractional branes and their smooth counterparts. The fractional branes are
D branes placed at orbifold or conifold singularities of spacetime with a fractional Ramond–
Ramond charge that can also be understood as branes wrapping vanishing cycles through which
they possess non-trivial fluxes. In the first year several collaborations of the network have
explicitly derived the supergravity solutions corresponding to various configurations of frac-
tional D branes in orbifold backgrounds [hep-th/0011077, hep-th/0012035, hep-th/0105258,
hep-th/0107057] and used them to study relevant properties of their dual non-conformal gauge
theories. In particular the running coupling constant and the beta-function of the N = 2
Super Yang–Mills theory in d = 4 have been obtained from a supergravity dual for the first
time. Moreover an exact solution representing fractional branes on a resolved orbifold has also
been found [hep-th/0106186]. In the second year these results have been extended and further
developed to study gauge theories with N = 1 supersymmetry in d = 4 [hep-th/0112187] and
the gravitational dual of the chiral anomaly [hep-th/0202195]. Another related development of
the last year has been the study of the relation between fractional branes and wrapped branes
[hep-th/0112126]. The latter are branes wrapping supersymmetric cycles inside a Calabi–Yau
manifold which have been extensively used to engineer gauge theories with a reduced amount
of supersymmetry. Recently, the chiral symmetry breaking, the appearance of the gaugino
condensate and the complete NSVZ beta function of the pure N = 1 Super Yang–Mills theory
in d = 4 have been derived from the supergravity solution of wrapped D5 branes, which also
predicts non-perturbative effects in the form of fractional instantons [hep-th/0205204].
Also in the second year and through the work of another collaboration of the network, the
understanding of the AdS/CFT correspondence has been extended beyond the level of BPS
states to general states non protected by multiplet shortening [hep-th/0103230, hep-th/0105254,
hep-th/0206020].
A problem strictly related to the gauge/gravity correspondence is the classification of the D-
brane spectrum on various string backgrounds. This problem has been addressed by several
collaborations of the network and solved in various cases using CFT methods, the boundary
state formalism and also the mathematical weapons provided by K-theory [hep-th/0112190,
hep-th/0112198, hep-th/0110041, hep-th/0206158]. Furthermore new non-supersymmetric so-
lutions of bulk supergravity have been found that describe D3-branes wrapped on spheres
second periodic report HPRN-CT-2000-00131; Quantum spacetime 7

[hep-th/0111017]. These solutions are new weapons in the study of the gauge/gravity corre-
spondence for non-supersymmetric Yang–Mills theories.
In the second year, the new interest in de Sitter backgrounds (see section A.1.3) motivated
the study of a dS/CFT correspondence for which some preliminary results have already been
obtained [hep-th/0202073, hep-th/0203268].

A.1.2 Wrapped branes and manifolds of restricted holonomy (related to ff1)

An issue closely related to that discussed in the previous section is the general consideration
of the supergravity solutions describing p-branes that have been partially wrapped on super-
symmetric Lagrangian cycles of their transverse space. Furthermore, in order to deepen our
understanding of the relation between superstring theory and M-theory, it is of the utmost rele-
vance to be able to lift such ten-dimensional solutions to full-fledged solutions of 11-dimensional
M-theory. This involves the mathematical study and classification of 7-dimensional manifolds of
restricted holonomy. In the first year, several results were obtained in connection with this that
can be considered a new issue to be added to the Joint programme of work [hep-th/0111274,
hep-th/0112117, hep-th/0202135, hep-th/0205099]. In the second year, these results were en-
larged and extended. In particular, deformations of conifolds and G2 holonomy spaces that are
due to string R4 corrections were computed [hep-th/0111128].

A.1.3 Non-compact gaugings, domain walls, brane worlds, supermultiplet cou-

plings, cosmology and de Sitter vacua (related to b, ff2)

Another important issue in last two year research has been the consideration of domain wall
solutions of supergravity and of their gauge duals. This is also an approach to the gauge/gravity
correspondence in the non-conformal case, yet it also relates to the Randall–Sundrum scenario
of brane-worlds. On the gravitational side one needs to consider the non compact gaugings of
supergravity. Various and relevant contributions on this issue were made during the first year
by several groups and collaborations in the network [hep-th/0012203, hep-th/0101214, hep-
th/0104056]. The more significant advances, however, came in this sector in the second year. It
was realized that supersymmetry allows more possibilities than were generally accepted so far.
In the investigation of supersymmetric models with 8 supercharges, we found that supersym-
metry does not restrict the geometric setting of the scalars in hypermultiplets to hyperkähler
and quaternionic-Kähler, as was the general belief, but allows the more general hypercomplex
and quaternionic manifolds. Similarly, new generalizations were found of the known couplings
with antisymmetric tensors in D = 5 [hep-th/0205230]. New physically inequivalent gaugings
of N=8 supergravity were also found [hep-th/0202116, hep-th/0203206; hep-th/0204145] that
were not contained in the exhaustive classification of such gaugings previously obtained by a
group of our network. The key for these extensions is based on new non-isomorphic choices
of the maximal electric subgroup, previously assumed to be SL(8, R) ⊂ E7(7) . In other words,
prior to the gauging one performs a non-trivial non-perturbative duality rotation.
It is worth stressing that non-compact gaugings are related to de Sitter vacua of supergravity
and hence of superstring theory. In view of the new developments in observational cosmology
that indicated the existence of a positive although small cosmological constant, the topics of
non-compact gaugings became a new relevant research direction in our Joint programme of
work already in the first year. In the second year, a positive and very much encouraging result
second periodic report HPRN-CT-2000-00131; Quantum spacetime 8

was obtained by a collaboration in our network that established the existence of stable de Sitter
vacua in N = 2 supergravity. These vacua are liable to be lifted to N = 4 theories and even
to full-fledged string theory and rely on the same mechanism responsible for the new N = 8
gaugings, namely non perturbative duality rotations prior to the gauging [hep-th/0205119].
Furthermore, de Sitter vacua have also been found in D = 6 within the framework of the
exceptional F (4) supergravity [hep-th/0203074].

A.1.4 Superembedding of branes, κ-supersymmetry, supersymmetry in singular

spaces and non-Abelian Born–Infeld actions (related to e3, d4, ff7)

Another important aspect of the joint work in the last two years has been the deepening
of our understanding of world-volume actions for branes and domain walls. World-volume
actions, fixed by κ-supersymmetry, are the necessary sources for all supergravity solutions
describing branes. They fix the boundary conditions and contain many important informations
on the dual gauge theories that indeed live on the world volume. An outstanding major open
problem is the construction of supersymmetric non-Abelian Born Infeld actions. In the first
year, several important advances were made by various groups of the network on this and on
related issues [hep-th/0010151, hep-th/0011018, hep-th/0011264, hep-th/0105274]. In the
second year, these results were further extended by pushing the calculation one order higher
and by proposing a new organizational principle for the effective action [hep-th/0207015]. In
this direction, a very recent result obtained in the second year is the construction of a new
first-order formalism for Dp-brane world-volume actions, which extends the Lorentz symmetry
to a local GL(d, R) symmetry and allows the use of the rheonomic approach to supergravity
also in this instance [hep-th/0206144]. The exploitation of this new formulation in the quest of
constructing supersymmetric non-Abelian Born–Infeld actions is a task for the near future.

A.1.5 Non-commutative geometry, strings in B-field backgrounds, tachyon con-

densation and string field theory (related to ff4, ff6, e2)

Another new issue on which several results were obtained by the network already in the first
year and that constitutes a clear-cut new direction of investigation for the future, is related
both to non-commutative geometry and to string field theory. Both issues are not new, but
have obtained a new relevance and significance in very recent developments. On one side, it
turns out that the gauge duals of brane solutions where a nontrivial B field is present are non-
commutative gauge theories. On the other hand, string field theory can be effectively applied
to study tachyon condensation and the emergence of fermionic superstrings from the bosonic
string. These intimately related topics where the network has already contributed several
results, constitutes a further clear-cut investigation direction added to the Joint programme of
Work [hep-th/0012061, hep-th/0203099, hep-th/0204037, hep-th/0102007]. In particular,
in the second year there was a study of non-commutative geometry for the case of the AdS
space with a constant magnetic field [hep-th/0111200], the study of a consistent formulation
of non-commutative gravity [hep-th/0201103, hep-th/0203038, hep-th/0204152] and an inquiry
into the definition of Vacuum String Field Theory in the presence of a B field [hep-th/0201060,
hep-th/0203188].
second periodic report HPRN-CT-2000-00131; Quantum spacetime 9

A.1.6 Brane-worlds, supersymmetry breaking and cosmology (related to b3, gg2)

On the more phenomenologically oriented side of getting string theory predictions on observable
phenomena, new quite relevant advances were made by collaborations of the network in relation
with the breaking of supersymmetry in brane-world scenarios where our 4-dimensional physical
world is conceived as a 3-brane floating in ten-dimensional spacetime. The relation of this
picture with cosmology and with the problem of the cosmological constant was also considered
and relevant progress was made in the first year. In the second year, new results were obtained
about intersecting brane worlds, which lead to promising gauge theories surprisingly close to
the Standard Model [hep-th/0010198, hep-th/0012156, hep-th/0106050, hep-th/0107138, hep-
th/0111269, hep-th/0112015, hep-th/0202024, hep-th/0202037, hep-th/0202124,
hep-th/0203055, hep-th/0204153, hep-th/0205012, hep-th/0205166, hep-th/0206038]. At the
same time, these compactifications have been shown to provide a very natural mechanism for
supersymmetry breaking. Furthermore, within the scheme provided by the brane-world models,
a collaboration of our network succeeded in computing threshold corrections to the gauge cou-
pling constants [hep-th/0204094] and discussed the cosmological implications of this scenario
in connection with a cyclic universe [hep-th/0205180].

A.1.7 Black holes, N = 2 theories and the entropy (related to d5)

New results were obtained in the first year in relation with the problem of obtaining the micro-
scopic statistical interpretation of supersymmetric black holes [hep-th/0012201, hep-th/0104138].
These were extended in the second year by various collaborations also in relation with the gen-
eral study of gravity in de Sitter backgrounds [hep-th/0202073, hep-th/0203268].

A.1.8 Berkovits covariant formulation and the superembedding (related to gg3)

A new development that took place in our field during the last year is the introduction of the
pure spinor approach to superstring covariant quantization due to Berkovits. In this respect
our network has already achieved some significant advance by clarifying the relation of this new
approach with the n = 2 superembedding formulation. Such a relation is based on a suitable
gauge fixing [hep-th/0206104].

A.1.9 pp-waves (related to gg1)

Another new development that occurred world wide in our field during the past year is the
investigation of pp-wave solutions. It was found that they have a holographic relation to Yang–
Mills and other theories. These solutions have already been considered by collaborations of our
network [hep-th/0203028, hep-th/0205296]. The string solution to some pp-wave backgrounds
have been found and a concrete holographic duality in pp-wave backgrounds is proposed [hep-
th/0204004]. Furthermore, there is a concrete proposal of further study. Indeed motivated by
the fact that pp-wave geometry can be obtained from adS5 × S 5 as a Penrose limit and that
type II strings can be quantized on such backgrounds, it has been proposed that such a string
theory is dual to the sector of d = 4, N = 4, SU(N ) Yang–Mills with large R-charge J, in the
limit N, J large. It is extremely interesting to study and check various aspects of this proposal.
A very recent and important result has been obtained in [hep-th/0206079], where in this limit
second periodic report HPRN-CT-2000-00131; Quantum spacetime 10

anomalous dimensions of N = 4, SU(N ) Yang–Mills operators could be obtained to all orders

of perturbation theory.

A.2 Joint publications

Nearly all the publications are published on the Web on the e-print archive with main site
http://xxx.lanl.gov/, which forms the main publication method in our field of research.
The reference number in this archive is indicated, as hep-th/yymmnnn. The starting hep-th
(high energy physics-theory) occurs for most of our papers, others as hep-ph
(phenomenology), hep-lat (lattice gauge theory) and astro-ph (astronomy) also appear.
Further, yy refers to the year, mm to the month, and nnn is an ordering number. This gives
thus the time when it has been published. The papers have been ordered by their publication
time on the archive. This list therefore goes from hep-th/0110000 to hep-th/0206100,
corresponding to half of June 2002. Network young researchers are indicated in bold type.

1. J. Ambjørn, K. N. Anagnostopoulos and A. Krasnitz, Real-time dynamics of a hot

Yang–Mills theory: A numerical analysis, Nucl. Phys. Proc. Suppl. 106 (2002)
546–548, hep-lat/0110092. Published paper. Contribution by Copenhagen,
Heraklion. Related to task c.
2. J. Ambjørn, K. N. Anagnostopoulos, W. Bietenholz, F. Hofheinz and J. Nishimura, On
the quantum geometry of string theory, Nucl. Phys. Proc. Suppl. 106 (2002) 965–967,
hep-lat/0110094. Published paper. Contribution by Copenhagen, Berlin,
Heraklion. Related to task a, e.
3. L. Andrianopoli, R. D’Auria and S. Ferrara, Supersymmetry reduction of N-extended
supergravities in four dimensions, JHEP 03 (2002) 025, hep-th/0110277. Published
paper. Contribution by Torino, Frascati. Related to task b.
4. J. Gheerardyn and P. Meessen, Supersymmetry of massive D = 9 supergravity, Phys.
Lett. B525 (2002) 322–330, hep-th/0111130. Published paper. Contribution by
Leuven, Padova. Related to task b, ff2.
5. G. Curio, B. Körs and D. Lüst, Fluxes and branes in type II vacua and M-theory
geometry with G2 and Spin(7) holonomy, hep-th/0111165. Contribution by Utrecht,
Berlin. Related to task a, b, c.
6. S. Fredenhagen and V. Schomerus, D-branes in coset models, JHEP 02 (2002) 005,
hep-th/0111189. Published paper. Contribution by Paris, Bonn. Related to task e2.
7. A. Bilal, J.-P. Derendinger and K. Sfetsos, (Weak) G2 holonomy from self-duality, flux
and supersymmetry, Nucl. Phys. B628 (2002) 112–132, hep-th/0111274. Published
paper. Contribution by Paris, Neuchâtel, Heraklion . Related to task a, ff1.
8. G. Mangano, G. Miele, S. Pastor and M. Peloso, A precision calculation of the effective
number of cosmological neutrinos, Phys. Lett. B534 (2002) 8–16, astro-ph/0111408.
Published paper. Contribution by Frascati, Bonn. Related to task c2.
9. R. Blumenhagen, B. Körs, D. Lüst and T. Ott, Intersecting brane worlds on tori and
orbifolds, hep-th/0112015. Contribution by Utrecht, Berlin. Related to task a, b, c.
10. M. Abou-Zeid and H. Samtleben, Chern–Simons vortices in supergravity, Phys. Rev.
D65 (2002) 085016, hep-th/0112035. Published paper. Contribution by Utrecht,
London. Related to task a, c, e.
second periodic report HPRN-CT-2000-00131; Quantum spacetime 11

11. K. N. Anagnostopoulos, W. Bietenholz and J. Nishimura, The area law in matrix models
for large N QCD strings, hep-lat/0112035. Contribution by Copenhagen, Berlin,
Heraklion. Related to task a, e.
12. K. Behrndt, E. Bergshoeff, D. Roest and P. Sundell, Massive dualities in six
dimensions, Class. Quant. Grav. 19 (2002) 2171–2200, hep-th/0112071. Published
paper. Contribution by Utrecht, Berlin. Related to task a.
13. P. Di Vecchia, H. Enger, E. Imeroni and E. Lozano-Tellechea, Gauge theories from
wrapped and fractional branes, Nucl. Phys. B631 (2002) 95–127, hep-th/0112126.
Published paper. Contribution by Copenhagen, Torino. Related to task d1, ff1, ff3.
14. S. Ferrara and M. A. Lledó, Considerations on super Poincaré algebras and their
extensions to simple superalgebras, hep-th/0112177. Contribution by Torino,
Frascati. Related to task a.
15. M. Bertolini, P. Di Vecchia, G. Ferretti and R. Marotta, Fractional branes and N = 1
gauge theories, Nucl. Phys. B630 (2002) 222–240, hep-th/0112187. Published paper.
Contribution by Copenhagen, Frascati. Related to task d1, ff3.
16. M. Billo, L. Gallot and A. Liccardo, Fractional branes on ALE orbifolds,
hep-th/0112190. Contribution by Torino, Frascati. Related to task ff3.
17. L. Andrianopoli, R. D’Auria and S. Ferrara, Consistent reduction of N = 2 → N = 1
four dimensional supergravity coupled to matter, Nucl. Phys. B628 (2002) 387–403,
hep-th/0112192. Published paper. Contribution by Torino, Frascati. Related to task
d1, ff3.
18. M. Bertolini, P. Di Vecchia and R. Marotta, N = 2 four-dimensional gauge theories
from fractional branes, hep-th/0112195. Contribution by Copenhagen, Frascati.
Related to task d1, ff3.
19. B. Ponsot, V. Schomerus and J. Teschner, Branes in the Euclidean AdS3 , JHEP 02
(2002) 016, hep-th/0112198. Published paper. Contribution by Paris, Bonn. Related
to task a, b.
20. J. Ambjørn, A. Dasgupta, J. Jurkiewicz and R. Loll, A Lorentzian cure for Euclidean
troubles, Nucl. Phys. Proc. Suppl. 106 (2002) 977–979, hep-th/0201104. Published
paper. Contribution by Utrecht, Copenhagen, Bonn. Related to task a.
21. C.-S. Chu, R. Russo and S. Sciuto, Remarks on the calculations of charged open string
amplitudes: The 1-loop tadpole, hep-th/0201118. Contribution by Paris, Torino.
Related to task c1.
22. E. Gava, A. B. Hammou, J. F. Morales and K. S. Narain, D1D5 systems and AdS/CFT
correspondences with 16 supercharges, hep-th/0201265. Contribution by Utrecht,
Padova. Related to task d.
23. R. Blumenhagen, B. Körs and D. Lüst, Moduli stabilization for intersecting brane worlds
in type 00 string theory, Phys. Lett. B532 (2002) 141–151, hep-th/0202024. Published
paper. Contribution by Utrecht, Berlin . Related to task a, b, c.
24. L. Andrianopoli, R. D’Auria, S. Ferrara and M. A. Lledó, Super Higgs effect in extended
supergravity, hep-th/0202116. Contribution by Torino, Frascati. Related to task a,
b.
25. R. Blumenhagen, B. Körs, D. Lüst and T. Ott, Hybrid inflation in intersecting brane
worlds, hep-th/0202124. Contribution by Utrecht, Berlin. Related to task a, b, c.
second periodic report HPRN-CT-2000-00131; Quantum spacetime 12

26. R. Hernández and K. Sfetsos, An eight-dimensional approach to G2 manifolds, Phys.

Lett. B536 (2002) 294–304, hep-th/0202135. Published paper. Contribution by
Neuchâtel, Heraklion. Related to task a, ff1.
27. M. Bertolini, P. Di Vecchia, M. Frau, A. Lerda and R. Marotta, More anomalies from
fractional branes, hep-th/0202195. Contribution by Copenhagen, Torino, Frascati.
Related to task d1, ff3.
28. M. B. Halpern and N. A. Obers, Two large examples in orbifold theory: Abelian
orbifolds and the charge conjugation orbifold on su(n), hep-th/0203056. Contribution
by Utrecht, Copenhagen. Related to task d.
29. G. Delfino, P. Grinza and G. Mussardo, On the fermion boson correspondence for
correlation functions of disorder operators, Phys. Lett. B536 (2002) 169–176,
hep-th/0203063. Published paper. Contribution by Torino, Padova . Related to task
a5, d3.
30. M. Bertolini, T. Harmark, N. A. Obers and A. Westerberg, Non-extremal fractional
branes, Nucl. Phys. B632 (2002) 257–282, hep-th/0203064. Published paper.
Contribution by Utrecht, Copenhagen. Related to task d1, ff3.
31. F. Lizzi, G. Mangano, G. Miele and M. Peloso, Cosmological perturbations and short
distance physics from noncommutative geometry, hep-th/0203099. Contribution by
Bonn, Frascati. Related to task c2.
32. L. Andrianopoli, R. D’Auria, S. Ferrara and M. A. Lledó, Gauging of flat groups in four
dimensional supergravity, hep-th/0203206. Contribution by Torino, Frascati.
Related to task a, b.
33. E. Kiritsis and B. Pioline, Strings in homogeneous gravitational waves and null
holography, hep-th/0204004. Contribution by Paris, Heraklion. Related to task a.
34. Z. Guralnik, R. C. Helling, K. Landsteiner and E. Lopez, Perturbative instabilities on
the non-commutative torus, Morita duality and twisted boundary conditions, JHEP 05
(2002) 025, hep-th/0204037. Published paper. Contribution by Berlin, Bonn. Related
to task a.
35. L. Andrianopoli, R. D’Auria, S. Ferrara and M. A. Lledó, Duality and spontaneously
broken supergravity in flat backgrounds, hep-th/0204145. Contribution by Torino,
Frascati. Related to task a, b.
36. I. Antoniadis, E. Kiritsis and J. Rizos, Anomalous U(1)s in type I superstring vacua,
hep-th/0204153. Contribution by Paris, Heraklion. Related to task c.
37. E. Kiritsis, C. Kounnas, P. M. Petropoulos and J. Rizos, Five-brane configurations
without a strong coupling regime, hep-th/0204201. Contribution by Paris, Heraklion.
Related to task a.
38. B. Dittrich and R. Loll, A hexagon model for 3D Lorentzian quantum cosmology,
hep-th/0204210. Contribution by Utrecht, Bonn. Related to task a.
39. B. Julia and S. Silva, On covariant phase space methods, hep-th/0205072. Contribution
by Paris, Bonn. Related to task a.
40. R. Hernández and K. Sfetsos, Branes with fluxes wrapped on spheres,
hep-th/0205099. Contribution by Neuchâtel, Heraklion. Related to task a, ff1.
41. P. Frè, M. Trigiante and A. Van Proeyen, Stable de Sitter vacua from N = 2
supergravity, hep-th/0205119. Contribution by Leuven, Utrecht, Torino. Related to
second periodic report HPRN-CT-2000-00131; Quantum spacetime 13

task c2, ff2.

42. P. Di Vecchia, A. Lerda and P. Merlatti, N = 1 and N = 2 super Yang–Mills theories
from wrapped branes, hep-th/0205204. Contribution by Copenhagen, Torino.
Related to task d1, ff1.
43. E. Imeroni, On the N = 1 beta-function from the conifold, hep-th/0205216.
Contribution by Copenhagen, Torino. Related to task d1, ff1.
44. E. Bergshoeff, S. Cucu, T. de Wit, J. Gheerardyn, R. Halbersma, S. Vandoren and
A. Van Proeyen, Superconformal N = 2, D = 5 matter with and without actions,
hep-th/0205230. Contribution by Leuven, Utrecht. Related to task b, c.
45. G. Arutyunov, S. Penati, A. C. Petkou, A. Santambrogio and E. Sokatchev,
Non-protected operators in N = 4 SYM and multiparticle states of AdS5 SUGRA,
hep-th/0206020. Contribution by Bonn, Padova. Related to task a, b, d.
46. R. Blumenhagen, V. Braun, B. Körs and D. Lüst, Orientifolds of K3 and Calabi–Yau
Manifolds with Intersecting D-branes, hep-th/0206038. Contribution by Utrecht,
Berlin. Related to task a, b, c.

A.3 Joint publication with other RTN networks

A number of papers have been published in collaboration with two other networks of the RTN
programme. Those which are already in the above list of joint publications are not repeated
here. The other ones are:
1. C. A. Scrucca, M. Serone, L. Silvestrini and F. Zwirner, Anomalies in orbifold field
theories, Phys. Lett. B525 (2002) 169–174, hep-th/0110073. Published paper.
Contribution by Padova, Roma (HPRN-CT-2000-00148). Related to task b, c.
2. A. Giveon, A. Kehagias and H. Partouche, Geometric transitions, brane dynamics and
gauge theories, JHEP 12 (2001) 021, hep-th/0110115. Published paper. Contribution
by Heraklion, Ecole Polytechnique Paris (HPRN-CT-2000-00148). Related to
task a, ff1.
3. G. Huey, S. Alexander and L. Pogosian, Quintessence and variation of the fine structure
constant in the CMBR, Phys. Rev. D65 (2002) 083001, astro-ph/0110562. Published
paper. Contribution by London Imperial, Queen Mary London
(HPRN-CT-2000-00122). Related to task c2.
4. I. Antoniadis, E. Kiritsis and T. Tomaras, D-brane Standard Model, Fortsch. Phys. 49
(2001) 573–580, hep-th/0111269. Published paper. Contribution by Heraklion, Ecole
Polytechnique Paris (HPRN-CT-2000-00148). Related to task c.
5. R. Apreda, F. Bigazzi, A. L. Cotrone, M. Petrini and A. Zaffaroni, Some Comments on
N=1 Gauge Theories from Wrapped Branes, Phys. Lett. B536 (2002) 161–168,
hep-th/0112236. Published paper. Contribution by Padova, Ecole Polytechnique
Paris (HPRN-CT-2000-00148). Related to task d1.
6. S. Groot Nibbelink, H. P. Nilles and M. Olechowski, Spontaneous localization of bulk
matter fields, Phys. Lett. B536 (2002) 270–276, hep-th/0203055. Published paper.
Contribution by Bonn, Warsaw (HPRN-CT-2000-00148). Related to task b1, b3.
7. N. Evans, M. Petrini and A. Zaffaroni, The gravity dual of softly broken N = 1 super
Yang–Mills, JHEP 06 (2002) 004, hep-th/0203203. Published paper. Contribution by
second periodic report HPRN-CT-2000-00131; Quantum spacetime 14

Padova, Ecole Polytechnique Paris (HPRN-CT-2000-00148). Related to task

d1.
8. S. Groot Nibbelink, H. P. Nilles and M. Olechowski, Instabilities of bulk fields and
anomalies on orbifolds, hep-th/0205012. Contribution by Bonn, Warsaw
(HPRN-CT-2000-00148). Related to task b1, b3.
9. D. Martelli and W. Mück, Holographic renormalization and Ward identities with the
Hamilton–Jacobi method, hep-th/0205061. Contribution by Frascati, Queen Mary
London (HPRN-CT-2000-00122). Related to task c.
10. M. Peloso and L. Sorbo, Moduli from cosmic strings, hep-ph/0205063. Contribution by
Bonn, Orsay (HPRN-CT-2000-00152). Related to task c2.
11. K. A. Meissner, H. P. Nilles and M. Olechowski, Brane induced supersymmetry
breakdown and restoration, hep-th/0205166. Contribution by Bonn, Warsaw
(HPRN-CT-2000-00152). Related to task b3, c1.
12. F. Bigazzi, A. L. Cotrone, L. Girardello and A. Zaffaroni, pp-wave and
non-supersymmetric gauge theory, hep-th/0205296. Contribution by Padova, ICTP
Trieste (HPRN-CT-2000-00122). Related to task gg1.

B Comparison with the Joint Programme of Work

The scientific highlights described in the section A.1 were already cross-checked with the Re-
search Objectives fixed in the contract and numbered from a1 to e5. In this section, we consider
a more detailed comparison of the work accomplished by the network in relation with these
objectives.

B.1 Research objectives

The overall research objectives mentioned in the contract (and repeated in the beginning of
section A.1 as A-E) are still valid and constitute the main conceptual frame that guides the
research in our field. The results obtained in the first two years and those that we expect to
obtain in the next years are all related to these fundamental questions. Indeed the main issues
are
• On one side, improving our understanding of the inner structure of quantum M–theory
by singling out its essential degrees of freedom, mastering its many dual formulations,
fully appreciating its manifold geometrical content
• On the other side, deepen our understanding of supersymmetry breaking and set up a
reasonable scenario that makes contact between the hard structure of the theory and a
credible description of the real world, namely the phenomenology of elementary particle
physics and observational cosmology.
• Exploit all instances of duality and all aspects of the gauge/gravity correspondence to
work out non-perturbative quantum results on gauge theories, capable of describing the
Standard Model of fundamental non-gravitational interactions by means of tools in clas-
sical geometry.
In the contract, we mentioned a further breaking up of the five main issues a, b, c, d, e into pro-
visional research directions numbered a1, . . . , e5. An overview of how far we went in developing
second periodic report HPRN-CT-2000-00131; Quantum spacetime 15

these directions in the first two years, and through which collaborations, is displayed in table 4.
As one can note, almost all of the issues have been addressed in these two years, and by more
that one group. Yet, one can also note that some issues have been addressed more intensively
than others and by several groups. This is in line with the readjusting of priorities and of
interests following the world–wide evolution of the field. Indeed, as mentioned in section A.1,
the emphasis has now shifted on a few issues that have several ramifications:
1. the gauge/gravity correspondence in non-conformal cases;
2. the relation between branes and strings with realistic cosmological models;
3. non-commutative geometry and string field theory;
4. the search of de Sitter backgrounds in supergravity and the study of string theory in
cosmological backgrounds;
5. new methods of covariant quantization.
The most investigated research lines have been those that have a stronger relation with the
above five issues and that form the basis for future investigations along these directions.

B.2 Research method

The primary research techniques have been, as foreseen in the contract, those typical of theoret-
ical physics, namely discussion and calculation. There is nothing to change in this respect and
we just have to continue with, and possibly further expand, the already high level of commu-
nications and interactions among the member groups and individual scientists that constitute
our network.

B.3 Work plan

As mentioned in section B.1, the world-wide development of our field, paralleled by the internal
development of our own joint work, has emphasized the emergence of new research lines that
are closely related to those already activated, but that become prominent since they open
new perspectives. Furthermore, they provide new viewpoints for our basic understanding of
M-theory inner structure. These new issues have already been mentioned while reporting on
the first two year results (section A.1) and while comparing the accomplished work with the
settled research objectives (section B.3). It is anyhow worthwhile to summarize these issues
and number them with a new code, which we can use for comparison in later reports. The new
codes are ff1 to ff8 (issues opened in the first year), gg1 to gg3 (issues opened in the second
year), and aa6, bb4, bb5 (additional research directions for the research objectives a and b,
which also turned up during the second year).

ff1 : Manifolds of restricted holonomy and branes wrapped on supersymmetric cycles

ff2 : Non-compact gaugings, supergravity potentials, de Sitter vacua and cosmological back-
grounds in string theory

ff3 : Fractional branes and ALE manifolds

ff4 : Tachyon potential and string field theory

ff5 : Quantum Hall systems and branes

second periodic report HPRN-CT-2000-00131; Quantum spacetime 16

Subj. Leu Ut Pa Lon Cop Ber Bo Neu To Pad Fras He

Brus Gro Pot To P. Mi 1 Sis Mi 2 Na Ge
Dynamics, Geometry and symmetry
a1 XX XX XX
a2 XX XX XX
a3 XX
a4 XX XX
a5 XX
aa6 XX
Supersymmetry breaking
b1 XX XX XX
b2 XX XX XX XX XX XX
b3 XX XX XX XX
bb4 XX XX
bb5 XX XX
Effective theories and compactification scales
c1 XX XX XX XX XX XX XX XX
c2 XX XX XX XX XX XX
c3
c4 XX
Counting degrees of freedom
d1 XX XX XX XX XX XX XX XX XX XX XX
d2 XX XX
d3
d4 XX XX XX XX XX XX XX
d5 XX XX XX XX XX XX
Fundamental definitions of M-theory
e1 XX XX XX
e2 XX XX XX XX
e3 XX
e4
e5 XX XX XX XX
New Research Lines opened in the 1st year
ff1 XX XX XX XX XX XX
ff2 XX XX XX XX XX XX XX XX XX XX
ff3 XX XX XX XX
ff4 XX XX XX XX
ff5 XX
ff6 XX XX XX XX XX XX XX XX
ff7 XX XX XX XX XX
ff8 XX XX
New Research Lines opened in the 2nd year
gg1 XX XX XX
gg2 XX XX
gg3 XX

Table 4: Synoptic view of the advance made by the network in relation with the research direc-
tions mentioned in the Joint Programme of Work of the contract. The XX denote contributions
that occurred in the last two years from the node labeling the column to the issue labeling the
row. (Institutes as in table 1).
second periodic report HPRN-CT-2000-00131; Quantum spacetime 17

ff6 : Non-commutative geometry and gauge theories

ff7 : Non-Abelian Born–Infeld actions

ff8 : Hyperbolic algebras and cosmology

gg1 : pp-waves

gg2 : Intersecting brane worlds: embedding of standard model into string theory

gg3 : Berkovits quantization

aa6 : NS5 branes and holography

bb4 : Consistent truncations of N -extended supergravities

bb5 : Generalizations of superconformal algebras

The topic gg2 is close to the research issue b3, but as the results have such a dramatic improve-
ment, it is fair to say that this goes beyond what we have foreseen. Topic ff2 is related to c2,
but due to recent observations in cosmology, this topic got special interest, and the development
of new required techniques became a separate line of research.
The original research issue d3 did not get tackled directly, but the de Sitter results (ff2 ) give
a view on related dS/EFT (de Sitter/Euclidean field theory) correspondence and the topic gg1
leads to a new way for looking at these dualities.
In table 4, we have associated to each issue one or more nodes that have already started working
on it or even have given contributions in connection with it. These new research lines should
be pursued in the remaining two years of the contract and are thus added new tasks for our
joint work.

B.4 Organisation and management

B.4.1 Organisation, communication

The research of the participants is done in several teams, which in some cases belong to one con-
tractor, a contractor and its subcontractor, or involve different partners. The results are always
communicated using the internationally most acknowledged archive in this field, available from
http://xxx.lanl.gov/ and several mirror sites. Moreover, as well published as non-finished
work is discussed during our meetings (see below), and during other workshops in the field of
string theory, branes and related subjects. The coordinator keeps an overview of the research
by participating in several meetings, by the hep-th archive, and by direct contacts.
We set up a home page on the internet at the location
http://itf.fys.kuleuven.ac.be/~tmr/rtn.html
This contains a description of the partnership, links to the institutes, the work programme,
information on the postdoc positions, information on meetings, training programmes and infor-
mation for the contact persons (protected). In particular, lecture series that are held in different
institutes are announced, and this was very successful, see ‘extra events’ under B.4.2. During
the time when we have the application procedure (every year October – January), the webpages
second periodic report HPRN-CT-2000-00131; Quantum spacetime 18

are the effective way to get the applications and distribute information to the members of the
committee using a specially written program (see section B.5.1).
Furthermore, we have organized a page for the postdocs (organized also by one of them) with
their addresses, personal home pages, information of collaborations and work plans, and a
common e-mail address.
The (updated) home pages of the members are:
• K.U. Leuven: http://itf.fys.kuleuven.ac.be/hep/what.html,
V.U. Brussel : http://tena4.vub.ac.be/,
U.L.Bruxelles: http://www.ulb.ac.be/sciences/ptm/PhysMath.html
• Utrecht: http://www.fys.ruu.nl/~wwwthe/,
Groningen: http://www-th.phys.rug.nl/
• Paris ENS: http://www.lpt.ens.fr/
• London Imperial College: http://theory.ic.ac.uk/
• Copenhagen Nordita: http://www.nordita.dk/
• H.U. Berlin: http://qft14.physik.hu-berlin.de/
• Bonn: http://www.th.physik.uni-bonn.de/nilles/,
Potsdam: http://www.aei-potsdam.mpg.de/
• Neuchâtel: http://www.unine.ch/phys/
• Torino univ: http://to41w2.to.infn.it/stringhome/index.htm,
Torino Politecnico: http://www.polito.it/dipartim/fisica/itindex.html,
Milano 1 : http://wwwteor.mi.infn.it/users/strings/
• Padova: http://axpbib.pd.infn.it/,
SISSA Trieste: http://www.sissa.it/,
Milano 2 : http://fisica.bicocca.mi.infn.it/
• Frascati: http://www.lnf.infn.it,
Genova: http://www.fisica.unige.it,
Napoli : http://www.na.infn.it/Theor/gruppoIV/namain.htm
• Heraklion: http://hep.physics.uch.gr/
The contact persons have from the homepage also access (using a password) to a file with
a summary of relevant rules, the budget, declarations and performed and planned payments.
In this file, a recapitulation is given of further plans and agreements that were made during
meetings. This file is regularly updated by the network coordinator.
Finally, there are regular mailings from the coordinator to all contact persons with recent news,
and announcements.

B.4.2 Network meetings

The main event for the coordination of the network is the yearly workshop. The one of this
year was in Leuven, after the mid-term meeting, September 13-19, 2002 (proceedings will be
published by Classical and Quantum Gravity.
We have also yearly schools, which this year took place in Utrecht: January 17 - Tuesday
January 22, 2002. Proceedings will be published by Classical and Quantum Gravity. The school
is mainly intended for the young pre- and post-doctoral researchers of the whole network and
focuses on a topic which, at that moment, turns out to be particularly relevant to the realization
of our research project. Its purpose is to quickly bring the young researchers to a level where
second periodic report HPRN-CT-2000-00131; Quantum spacetime 19

they can actively contribute to our programme. The school setup allows for an intensive contact
between students and lecturer. Every lecture is combined with an exercise or discussion session,
allowing the students to continuously assess their understanding of the subject under study.
The lecturers are five senior researchers who are experts in the field.
As we are used to do, the contact persons had a meeting during the network school, discussing
the progress of the network and practical issues. We had actually two meetings in Utrecht, one
to discuss the candidates for postdoc positions for the next year, and the second one to take
decisions on the postdocs and discuss all other organizational issues as during the workshops.
This included evaluations of the workshop and schools, leading to further improvement of their
structure, planning of workshops, schools and extra events in the future. Minutes are made of
these meetings, and a copy was sent to the coordinator in Brussels, Mr. S. Davies.
Some extra events took place:
• Lectures in Leuven of P. di Vecchia (from Copenhagen), followed by a couple of lectures
by Matthias Gaberdiel in Brussels (5-13/12/01). Apart from local students, also students
from Brussels, Groningen, Milano and Torino (and from non-network places: Liège and
Gent) followed the lectures. This whole program took just a few days and was well
announced (using the network homepage and the regular e-mail messages sent by the
network coordinator to the partners). The lectures addressed starting graduate students.
• Berlin: 4-8/3/02: A. Sen: lectures on D-branes and tachyons.
• Milano: 12-14/3/02 and 16-18/4/02: Anastasios Petkou: ”Conformal Field Theory in
dimensions D > 2”, and lectures of Grassi on Berkovits approach to superstrings.
Further, we collaborated to a meeting in Germany in August and lectures in Crete in October.
The coordinator of the network, A. Van Proeyen, has participated to some meetings of other
related EC networks
• Cambridge, February 11-15, 2002, third network meeting of HPRN-CT-2000-00122.
• Kazimierz, Poland, May 25 - 29, 2002, organized in the framework of EC networks HPRN-
CT-2000-00148 and 00152.
This increased contacts between the networks.

B.4.3 Visits and other contacts

The participants had frequent contacts in the network meetings, and also in several other
workshops and conferences on the topics of the contract that took place all over the world.
There have been permanent e-mail discussions and exchange of information and results.
We collected below some facts of travels to show some of the exchanges. Of course the expenses
for these travels, which are very important to promote the collaborations, were covered only
for a small part by the funds of the RTN network.
Also, the fact that some of our institutes were promoted to a Marie-Curie training center is
useful for our students.
The network school in Utrecht had 122 participants, 94 of these were from institutes in the
network. To the lecture series in Leuven and Brussels, (1 week in December 2001), there was
participation from outside Belgium from
second periodic report HPRN-CT-2000-00131; Quantum spacetime 20

• Copenhagen: P. di Vecchia, lecturer

• Groningen: J. Attema, A. Collinucci
• Torino univ.: F. Gargiulo, L. Sommovigio
• Torino Polit.: S. Vaulà
• Milano 1 : A. Celi, L. Martucci

We give now a list of other contacts (not exclusive). The travel of young researchers is also
given in section B.4.4.
second periodic report HPRN-CT-2000-00131; Quantum spacetime 21

Leuven. Travel from Leuven to other places

who where when how long purpose

A. Van Proeyen Torino Oct 2001 3 days collaboration
A. Van Proeyen Milano Oct 2001 3 days seminar and collaboration
A. Van Proeyen Groningen Dec 2001 3 days collaboration
S. Cucu Groningen Dec 2001 3 days collaboration
A. Van Proeyen Cambridge Feb 2002 1 week network meeting of
HPRN-CT-2000-00122
A. Van Proeyen Bonn Feb 2002 1 week workshop speaker
G. Smet Trieste March 2002 2 weeks school
Y. Demasure Trieste March 2002 2 weeks school
P.J. De Smet Trieste March 2002 2 weeks school
A. Van Proeyen Torino April 2002 4 days collaboration
A. Van Proeyen Milano April 2002 3 days seminar and collaboration
A. Van Proeyen Kazimierz May 2002 1 week network meeting of
(PL) HPRN-CT-2000-00152
A. Van Proeyen Groningen June 2002 1 day collaboration/PhD jury

Visits to Leuven from outside the network, but related to the network

who from when how long purpose

B. Janssen Madrid April 2002 2 days future young researcher
L. Huiszoon Amsterdam April 2002 2 days future young researcher

Brussel

• Giulio Bonelli: ”homecoming” trips

• Giulio Bonelli, to Torino, 12–14/11/2001 for scientific collaboration
• Alexander Sevrin and Paul Koerber: 18-20/6/02: work visit to Groningen, Koerber gave
a seminar and we basically finished a joint paper (de Roo-Eenink-Koerber-Sevrin).
• Attendance by A. Sevrin of the EC Moriond conference, Electroweak interactions and
unified theories, march 2002, Les Arcs, France.

Utrecht

• N. Obers, to Copenhagen, 1 week in December 2001 (seminar + collaboration).

• Mario Trigiante, to Torino, 18–19/2/2002, for scientific collaboration
• M. Trigiante to Leuven, May 2002, 2 days, collaboration

Groningen

who where when how long purpose

T. de Wit Leuven March 2002 2 days collaboration
E. Bergshoeff Leuven March 2002 2 days seminar/collaboration
E. Bergshoeff Milano May 2002 3 days giving seminar
second periodic report HPRN-CT-2000-00131; Quantum spacetime 22

Paris

• Rodolfo Russo, to Copenhagen, 5 days in march 2002 (collaboration).

• Rodolfo Russo, to Torino, 16–21.11.2002, and 29/3–4/4/2002 for scientific collaboration

London

• Stephon Alexander has visited Berlin a number of times (visits of about a week).
• 25-29 April 2001, J. Kalkkinen to Utrecht, giving a seminar.

Copenhagen

who where when how long purpose

P. Di Vecchia Napoli October 2001 1 week collaboration
+lectures for PhD students
P. Di Vecchia Torino October 2001 4 days collaboration
E. Imeroni Torino December 2001 1 week collaboration
M. Bertolini Torino January 2002 1 week collaboration
E. Imeroni Torino April 2002 2 weeks collaboration

Berlin. G. Cardoso, went to Utrecht, 10-16 March 2002, collaboration with J. Kaeppeli and
B. de Wit.
Ashoke Sen visited Berlin for giving some lectures on D-branes and tachyons, followed by several
members of the network.

Bonn

• G. Honecker to Utrecht 16.1.-28.1.02

• H.P. Nilles to Napoli 16.3-27.3.02
• M. Peloso to Trieste 19.2.-28.2.02

Torino U.

• P. Frè, to Leuven, October 2001, for 1 week: seminar and collaboration

• P. Merlatti, to Copenhagen, 1 week in January 2002 (seminar + collaboration).
• Pietro Frè visit to Bonn from 23.2.2002 to 28.2.2002
• Luca Sommovigo, Floriana Gargiulo, Fabio Lonegro and Paolo Merlatti (Ph. D. students)
visited Berlin from 4.3.2002 to 10.3.2002 to attend Ashoke Sen’s lectures
• M. Frau and A. Lerda, to Copenhagen, 2 weeks in June 2002 (collaboration).

Torino Politecnico. Visits of Riccardo D’Auria to CERN for collaborations giving rise to
joint publications

Milano 1 A. Petkou, former young researcher in Milano, visited Milano again on 12-14/3/02
and 16-18/4/02 to give lectures.
second periodic report HPRN-CT-2000-00131; Quantum spacetime 23

Trieste

• Loriano Bonora, to Torino, 19–23.11.2001, scientific collaboration

• M. Serone, to Copenhagen, 5 days in June 2002 (seminar).

Frascati. Visits to Politecnico Torino by S. Ferrara: 17-20/12/01, 28/1-1/2/02, 18-22/3/02,

15-18/5/02, 18-22/6/02

Napoli

• Raffaele Marotta spent 10 days in Copenhagen, December 10 to 20, 2001, collaboration.

• Raffaele Marotta spent three weeks in Copenhagen, May 6-26, 2002.
• Franco Pezzella, two weeks in Copenhagen, May 13-26, 2002.
Pezzella and Marotta went to Copenhagen for collaborations on the problem of tachyon conden-
sation and on the problem of branes on suitable orbifolds background breaking supersymmetry
to N = 1 (tasks a and b of the work plan).

Heraklion

• A. Kehagias to Milano/Neuchâtel (collaboration)

• C. Sfetsos to Neuchâtel (shortly, collaboration)
• E. Kiritsis to Paris (Collaboration)

B.4.4 Travel of young researchers

Wolfgang Mück
Visits to other EC network institutes: (apart from workshops and schools)
• Università di Roma “Tor Vergata” (Roma 2), for seminar, 2 days, February 2002 (other
EC network).
• Torino University, for seminar, 2 days, June 2002.
• Martin-Luther Universität Halle, for seminar combined with visit at home, June 2002
(other EC network).
conferences:
• network school Utrecht 2002,
• “congresso di fisica teorica” Cortona 2002.
Seminars (since I was in Berlin, and without those held at Napoli):
• Holographic renormalization with Hamilton-Jacobi method, Università di Roma “Tor Ver-
gata”: February 2002, Cortona: May 2002, Università di Torino: June 2002 and Martin-
Luther Universität Halle: June 2002.

Gianguido Dall’Agata
Visits
• Utrecht, 17-22/2/2002 school of the network.
second periodic report HPRN-CT-2000-00131; Quantum spacetime 24

• Leuven 4-8/2/2002, collaboration and seminar ”RG Flows and brane-worlds in supergrav-
ity.”
Seminars
• 10/01 ”Attractors and flows in five-dimensional supergravity”, at the DESY theory work-
shop “Gravity and particle physics”, Hamburg, Germany.
Mario Trigiante

• Milano Bicocca, seminar ‘Recent results on dS and AdS vacua in supergravity’ on 22/03/02
• Seminar at Bari, ‘Aspects of Field Theory/Gravity Correspondence’ on 27/03/02
Visits to other institutes for collaboration
• 10-20/02/02, Torino
• 2/5/02, Leuven
• 24-28/05/02, Torino
Jussi Kalkkinen
Visits
• Uppsala, 26-29/05/2002 (4 days), to give a seminar ”Charges and Tensions in M-theory”
• Swansea, 23/05/2002 (1 day), to give a seminar ”Charges and Tensions in M-theory”
Other seminar: 04/02/2002 Imperial College, London, ”Topological Open Membranes”
Dumitru Ghilencea

• RTN Workshop, Leuven 13-19 September 2002. Seminar title: ”TeV-scale Z’ bosons from
D-branes”.
Additional Seminars given while at Bonn Univ:
• 7 March 2002, Bonn University, Seminar given: ”String thresholds to gauge couplings
from a field theory approach”.
Rodolfo Russo
Visits
• 11-17/3/02, Copenhagen for collaboration/discussion
• Utrecht, network school, January 2002
Seminar “(Non)commutative gauge theories from open strings” Università Tor Vergata di Roma
– December 2001.
Carl Herrmann
seminars and conferences
• DESY workshop, Hamburg, 9-12 October 2001
• RTN School, Utrecht, 17-22 January 2002
• Rencontres des particules, Clermont-Ferrand, 30 January- 1 February 2002
Talk: “Branes fractionnaires et singularités”
• 2nd Euro-GDR meeting, IPPP Durham, 18-20 April 2002
Invited talk: “ An Introduction to Gauge Theory/String Theory Correspondence”
second periodic report HPRN-CT-2000-00131; Quantum spacetime 25

• SPhT CEA, Saclay, 24 April 2002 and LPT Orsay, 25 April 2002
Talk: “Fractional branes and singularities”
• LAPP Annecy, 2 May 2002
Talk: “Fractional branes and singularities”
• Interviews for the concours CNRS CR2, Paris, 13 May 2002 and Concours maı̂tre de
conférence, Université de Provence, Marseille, 14 May 2002
Giulio Bonelli
Visits
• Torino University (IT), 16-19 Nov. 2001 - scientific collaboration
• Padova University (IT), 20-23 Nov. 2001 - scientific collaboration
• Utrecht University (NL), Jan. 2002 - RTN European Winter School
• Paris (FR), ‘Institut H. Poincaré’, 15 January 2002 - scientific collaboration
• Liège University (B), General BNV-SBP Scientific Meeting, 5-6 June, 2002
Talks:
• ‘M5-branes and Topological Field Theories’, ULB/VUB seminar, Brussel Nov. 2001
• ‘The M5-brane on K3 and del Pezzos’, Torino University (IT), Nov. 2001
• ‘The M5-brane on K3 and del Pezzos’, Padova University (IT), Nov. 2001
• ‘The M5-brane on K3 and del Pezzos’, Paris (FR), Institute “H. Poincaré”, 15 Jan. 2002
• ‘Issues in Matrix String Theory’, ULB/VUB seminar, Brussel Jan. 2002
• ‘Maximally supersymmetric gauge theories and string theory’, Liège (B), General BNV-
SBP Scientific Meeting, 5-6 June, 2002
Rafael Hernández
seminars:
• “Wrapped Branes and Holonomy”, Institut de Physique. Université de Neuchâtel. Octo-
ber 23, 2001.
The Erwin Schrödinger International Institute for Mathematical Physics. Wien, Austria.
November 5, 2001.
• “Closed String Tachyon Condensation in Melvin Backgrounds”, Instituto de Fı́sica Teórica.
Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. March 12, 2002.

B.5 Training
B.5.1 Measures taken to publicise vacant positions

We had another round of applications in the period November – January. The timing of the
applications and decisions is done in accordance with the habits in the field of elementary
particle physics. This maximizes our chances to get postdocs that are between the best in
the field. The announcement is made on our homepage and on several bulletin boards on the
internet. Moreover, in autumn all the institutes of the network get yearly applications from
candidates for the next academic year. If these postdocs have not already done so, they are
urged to fill the form on the internet to apply for a position in the network.
The procedure efficiently uses our network pages and a specially written program to disseminate
information to the postdoc committee consisting of a representative of all the partners. The
second periodic report HPRN-CT-2000-00131; Quantum spacetime 26

candidates fill out a form, giving an ordered list of 5 institutes that they prefer, and ask
referees to write letters of recommendations. All this information is automatically converted to
a network page that is accessible to the committee members. Using a password, they have access
to the data of the candidates and to the letters of recommendations. The contact persons of the
institutes also get a list of the candidates that express interest in their institute. Subsequently,
a meeting of the members of this committee is held (at the time of the network school). There,
the candidates are ranked in a few categories after a discussion on each of them. Then, the
representatives of the institutes make their own order of preferences. These are compared and
an order is established in which the offers to the candidates are made. These offers and replies
from the candidates are centrally handled by the network coordinator, such that the institutes
of the network do not enter in mutual competition, and have all information on the candidates
they are interested in.
We had this year 96 candidates, 9 were accepted in network positions, and 9 others were taken
to be paid by complementary funds. In principle, the successful applicants get a postdoc offer
for 2 years. In many cases, the network money is not sufficient to cover the two years, but is
then combined with other funds that the institutes add from other funds.
Remark that several of our institutes also use the procedure (and the information that they
obtain from this meeting) for decisions on positions that are financed by other funds.

B.5.2 Progress in recruitment

All the young researchers that are employed are at the postdoctoral level. In table 5, an overview

Table 5: Young researchers employed

node contract 1st yr. 2nd yr. engaged remains other

Leuven 28 7 12 9 0 54
Utrecht 20 8 12 0 72
Paris 16 12 4 24
London 14 9 5 0 42
Copenhagen 22 22 0 2
Berlin 20 12 8 0 52
Bonn 17 12 5 0 67
Neuchâtel 12 4 8
Torino U 54 12 12 30 0 18
Padova 48 10 24 14 0
Frascati 42 12 12 18 0 6
Heraklion 13 12 1
TOTAL 306 94 53 132 27 337

is given for each contractor. First, the number of months in the contract is mentioned, then,
the number of months used in the first year (1/10/00–30/9/01) and the number in the second
year. For the second year, we now take a full year (1/10/01–30/9/02), assuming that the
running contracts will in the remaining months continue as foreseen. A lot of contracts are
already agreed on for the coming two years. The months that are engaged in this way, are in
second periodic report HPRN-CT-2000-00131; Quantum spacetime 27

the 4th column, followed by the number of months in the contracts that remain according to
this schedule. Finally, the total amount of months for young researchers working on the project
and paid from other sources (see remark below) is given in the last column.
Some remarks:

• The postdocs are hired by the main contractors, but some spend most of their time at
the institute of subcontractors.

• Several universities gave an extra support to the network. They provided extra months of
salary for researchers that we selected in our postdoc committee to complete an appoint-
ment to 2 years, necessary for attracting good candidates. In some occasions, universities
provided also extra years such that more researchers could be employed. The number of
months provided in this way by universities is mentioned in the last column.

• Decisions on the choice of postdocs in extra positions, not paid by network money, were
also made using the network postdoc committee.

We give in table 6 a list of young researchers, selected by the network, but paid from other
sources.

Table 6: Young researchers in the network, selected from the postdoc committee, but paid from
other sources

Last Name First Name institute start date

Taylor Marika Utrecht 1/10/01
Stanciu Sonia London 1/10/01
Andreev Oleg Berlin 1/10/02
Braun Volker Paris 1/10/02
Fotopoulos Angelos London 1/10/02
Janssen Bert Leuven 1/10/02
Keurentjes Arjan Brussel 1/10/02
Kovacs Stefano Potsdam 1/10/02
Peeters Kasper Potsdam 1/10/02
Prezas Nikolaos Berlin 1/10/02
Stefanski Bogdan Utrecht 1/10/02

B.5.3 Integration of young researchers

The young researchers have directly been integrated in the activities of the network. They were
involved in 19 ’joint publications’. In Leuven, 21 young researchers gave research seminars
during our annual network workshop.

B.5.4 Measures taken to train the young researchers

The young researchers are trained in the following ways

second periodic report HPRN-CT-2000-00131; Quantum spacetime 28

• The most important training is in their participation to the research in the group where
they get a position.

• In our yearly network meeting, we invite lecturers to present an introductory talk. In

the afternoon there is a discussion session where these lecturers reply to questions on
the lecture. Already since the network meeting of the Science project, our predecessor,
in Leuven 1995, we organize it such that the younger people have preference in asking
questions. Their involvement is also stimulated by indicating young researchers to prepare
for the lecture, and asking them to prepare the discussion session.

• The research talks in the network meetings are to a large part given by young researchers.

• The network school is an event that has started from an idea of young researchers in the
mid-term meeting of the TMR network that was the predecessor of this network. It is
still one of the most appropriate organizations for the young researchers.

• We organize discussion groups on recent developments in the research related to the

programme in various institutes of the collaboration.

• We ask lecturers to give extensive lectures specifically aimed at the younger people in
institutes of the network (see also ‘extra events’ under section B.4.2).

• Our young researchers are sent to schools and workshops. These famous summer schools
for young researchers such as Les Houches, Erice, Cargèse or the ICTP in Trieste are
an important tradition in our field, where the younger researchers can get acquainted
with important ideas and techniques, in a relaxed atmosphere stimulating new contacts.
As the contract does not foresee funds for these events (the young researchers can not
present talks there, these are schools), we looked for funds in universities to allow them
to participate. This was often successful.

• The young researchers also set up a page on the webpage to keep contacts. This page has
discussion issues as well on physics questions as on organizational topics related to the
network. A link is made from our main network page.
second periodic report HPRN-CT-2000-00131; Quantum spacetime 29

C Remark: decision to include Barcelona as subcontrac-

tor in the network.
In the meeting of the contact persons of the RTN network ”The quantum structure of spacetime
and the geometric nature of fundamental interactions”, it was decided that we want to associate
the string theory group of the ”Departament Estructura i Constituents de la Materia, Facultat
de Fı́sica” of the University of Barcelona, (see the webpage http://www.ecm.ub.es/hep/) to
our network as a subcontractor of Imperial College, London. The research of this group is
related to subjects of research in our work programme. In particular their recent work on
branes wrapped around nontrivial cycles in the compactifying space and the solutions of string
theories with a noncommutative background and worldvolume solitons are interesting aspects
that are useful for our work. This expertise is useful for issue e2 in the work programme, and
the new issues f f 1 and f f 6 mentioned in section B.3 of this report. The group in Barcelona
involves especially Profs. J. Gomis, J. Russo, R. Emparan, J. Garriga, E. Verdaguer and J.M.
Pons working on subjects related to the network programme. The group also benefits from
periodic visits of Prof. P.K. Townsend. But also the expertise of D. Espriu, J.I. Latorre and
J. Sola, interested in non-perturbative aspects of quantum field theory and in the problem of
the cosmological constant, can be useful for our network. They will contribute to the work
following the Project Programme.
The institute does not require separate funding. The participation to the network activities
will be paid from local resources. In case that they would organize a part of the network
activities, this will be budgeted from the 75,000 Euro of overhead money that was foreseen for
the organization of network workshops or schools as written in Annex B in the Membership
agreement. The university of Barcelona will be associated to Imperial College, London. This
addition has been agreed unanimously in the contact person meeting of all the participants
that took place in Leuven on 15/9/02.