Truly Strong Coupling and Large Radius in String Theory

Abstract

String theory, if it describes nature, is probably strongly coupled. In light of recent developments in string duality, this means that the ``real world'' should correspond to a region of the classical moduli space which admits no weak coupling description. We exhibit, in the heterotic string, one such region of the moduli space, in which the coupling, $\lambda$, is large and the ``compactification radius'' scales as ${\lambda }^{1/3}$. We discuss some of the issues raised by the conjecture that the true vacuum lies in such a region. These include the question of coupling constant unification, and more generally the problem of what quantities one might hope to calculate and compare with experiment in such a picture.

10 pages, no figures. Typos corrected

References in corpus (3)

• Strong Coupling and the Cosmological Constant
• N=1 String Duality
• Recent Results in String Duality

Cited by in corpus (12)

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• Couplings and Scales in Strongly Coupled Heterotic String Theory
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• Low-Scale Closed Strings and their Duals
• Phenomenological Aspects of F-theory
• Strong Unification
• String Dualities from Matrix Theory
• Soft Masses in Strong Unification
• Seeking the Ground State of String Theory
• String Dualities from Matrix Theory: A Summary
• Possible Origin of Fermion Chirality and Gut Structure From Extra Dimensions